Today, thriving as a local business isn’t easy – you have to be where your consumers are, and that’s online. If your business is just brick-and-mortar, it won’t go far. Therefore, having an online presence where prospects can search for your business is essential.
Specifically, you need local listings and a website. Plus, it would help if you implemented specific strategies, so your website shows up in search results. And that’s what we call search engine optimization (SEO). Yes, the term sounds a little intimidating, but all you need to do is build trust by providing quality content.
Here are some SEO tips you can use to increase Google ranking so your business can gain local visibility. It will help outrank competitors on Google and show up for the right searches.
- Place the main keyword at the beginning of your content
There’s no doubt that you’ll want to use your keyword more than a single time within your page. However, the location of your keyword makes a lot of difference. Ideally, you should add your main keyword at the beginning of your content. But why? Because Google prioritizes terms that are on top of a webpage.
- Optimize titles
What’s a title? In essence, it’s the hyperlinked text of your page that’s displayed in search results. When it comes to technical SEO, the title’s role is quite important. It is the first thing users look at when going through a results page. If you want to boost the SEO of your website, make a title for every page, and all titles should be:
- Accurate: The title should reflect the purpose of the page and shouldn’t make false statements to lure the visitors.
- Compelling: The title should stand out to users searching for information your page has.
- Concise: The title should be brief because search engines don’t show more than 65 to 75 characters of your title tag.
Also, your titles must contain keywords, with every page targeting different keywords.
- Use backlinks
Backlinks can benefit every company – they’re the heart of page and domain authority, which is one of the most crucial ranking factors. Your primary focus should be to get your content published on, or get recognition from, high-authority websites. Therefore, implement your PR and marketing in a way that puts you in front of your target audiences. It won’t just drive high-value links back to your website, but help get the rank you desire.
- Don’t forget ALT tags
Every image/video on your website should consist of words that describe them. This description is what we call ALT tags. They help search engines locate your page using keywords found in your image/video descriptions. Therefore, if you want your site to be effortless, never forget ALT tags. They’ll help increase the ranking of your page.
- Don’t just write for search engines
Recently, many content creators and bloggers have started writing for search engines. In this old SEO method, search results were solely driven by keywords, ignoring valuable, engaging content. If you’re one of these bloggers, it’s time to change your mindset. Don’t capitalize on long-tail keywords to manipulate search engines. Remember, you should write content for people to compel them to buy your product/service. For example, if you’re writing a blog post on cheap train tickets, you need to actually answer the query of the user. Your post should include where they can find them, how to find them, etc. This will ensure they stay on your page and interact with your content. Even your CTA should direct to the specific page that helps the user; if you use copy like “click here” to do X, that’s exactly what it should do.
- Focus on topic clusters
Google and its algorithm are constantly evolving. All we need to do is focus on the users’ intentions – what they are searching for, their expectations, and what search results will solve their problem. But don’t just expect that creating content littered with keywords will push your page up in the search results. While keywords are important, there are plenty of other factors too. For example, the context that surrounds those keywords. It is known as ‘user intent.’ It would help if you found out what your users are searching for online. Here are two things you should take into consideration:
- Determine your target audience
- Organize content into clusters
By using this strategy, you’ll gain the following advantages:
- It fulfills user intent: Users can find more topics of interest.
- It transforms your website into a better resource: By changing your website into a resource for some specific topics, you’ll get in the good books of Google. Why? Because Google aims to lead users to the most relevant page for their search term. If Google sees your website as a good resource, it’ll reward you by ranking your website higher.
- Every cluster page can rank itself: This will drive more traffic to your website.
- Use internal linking
It’s easily one of the best SEO practices out there, and its implementation isn’t complex. Just add a link from one page on your website to another page. To get the maximum out of your internal links, do the following:
- Use anchor text that’s rich in keywords
- Send authority to needed pages
- Improve the loading speed of your page
There are several reasons why the loading time of your page is crucial. Firstly, if your page doesn’t load fast, it will lead to a high bounce rate. A poorly optimized website will impact the way the visitors of your website interact with your pages. Consequently, your ranking would be compromised by all the negative interactions. However, if your page loads in a couple of seconds, it’ll keep users coming back. The algorithm of Google will realize that your website is gaining popularity and will start ranking you better. That is why optimizing your server response time and page speed is critical.
Conclusion
Search engine optimization isn’t going to phase out anytime sooner. Your website should focus on SEO if you’re expecting lucrative results from it. If you’re starting with it, catch up fast, and these strategies above will help you. But don’t overwhelm yourself. Start with some, then move onto others. Plus, don’t forget about monitoring your results – it’s quite essential. Periodically checking your search engine ranking and traffic will help validate your SEO strategy. In just a matter of weeks, you’ll be improving your website’s ranking.
