30 Quick and Easy SEO Tips for Small Businesses

For the uninitiated, SEO can seem to be a complex and foreign landscape, but it doesn’t have to be too complicated.

Indeed, there’s a lot that small businesses (and anyone) can do without any great SEO knowledge, and without spending too much money.

With the help of some search experts, I’ve compiled a list of tips (in no particular order)…

1. Set up a Google My Business account

Set this up and get all of your business details uploaded. It’s totally free and will enable you to appear in local search results for queries specific to your area of operation.

Even broad queries with large volumes are now showing local results which is something small business owners can capitalise upon.

2. Build a fast, mobile-friendly website

Developing mobile sites can now be done easily with simple plugins for your CMS, such as WordPress, meaning that making all of your content mobile-friendly can be done quickly and cheaply.

Optimising it for fast load-speed (again through plugins where available) will help you stand out from the competition in terms of performance.

3. Conduct extensive keyword research to identify gaps in the market

Targeting the same keywords as your bigger competitors won’t see you make much ground as they are more established and have more coverage online.

Using keyword research tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner to spot gaps in the market will enable you to capitalise upon these – they may even convert at a better rate too.

Tips 1-3 by Jamie White, Head of Technical SEO at Search Laboratory.

4. Start using Google Search Console

It’s a free tool that gives a wealth of information about your website’s performance in Google search, as well as any errors on your site and issues you should address.

Improving your website without Search Console is like running a marathon without any shoes on. With Search Console you can find out what keywords Google thinks your website is relevant for, whether there are problems crawling your website, if your site is mobile friendly, and much more. It’s the starting point for most of your improvement efforts.

5. You need to understand your online audience through and through

Who is your typical online customer? What are they looking for? How do they spend their time online? What kind of content do they like to consume?

When you completely understand your audience, you will understand what you need to do online to grab their attention.

If your audience spends a lot of time on Facebook, you should focus effort there. If your audience reads online tutorials about topics relevant to your niche, maybe you need to produce your own tutorial content.

Without a thorough understanding of your audience’s needs and requirements, you won’t be able to make effective use of the online channels at your disposal – you’ll just be trying out different things at random, and that’s a terrible waste of your precious resources.

6. Look at how search engines are displaying results in your niche

Too often, small businesses have no idea who or what they are actually competing with in search.

For example, if you want to focus on a keyword that has a lot of huge international companies ranking on the first page, you should realise that perhaps your expectations need to be tempered.

Another example: if search engines show a lot of images or videos in their results for keywords you want to be visible for, you should consider producing that sort of content rather than just focus purely on text.

Also, often search engines will show local business results – if that’s the case, your efforts need to be adjusted to focus on achieving visibility in those types of results.

Tips 4-6 by Barry Adams, Polemic Digital

7. Get ScreamingFrog and check your site for possible onsite issues

Watch for security issues too – Sucuri site check is free and while it won’t be able to see all possible issues it can catch some of the most widespread ones.

This may seem unrelated to the topic of this article but compromised sites do lose their traffic and visibility.

8. Claim your physical address on Google Maps

If it’s a local business which a physical location and offline customers, make sure you claim your physical address on Google Maps.

9. Whatever you do, be genuine

Hiring somebody on the cheap to run  your Twitter account or build links for you may seem like a tempting  idea but it can – and probably will – backfire.

If you haven’t got  much of a marketing budget, take one step at a time but do it yourself as nobody knows your business and your customers better than you. Connect with them personally, do not count on somebody else spamming them on your behalf resulting in any positive outcome.

Tips 7-9 by Julia Logan, Irish Wonder

10. Beware of agencies that promise the earth

Unless you’re prepared to buy PPC ads, then there is no way to guarantee a page one listing (even then it can be tricky on competitive terms).

If an agency or salesperson promises you this, ignore them. They’re lying and will likely do a lot of damage to your long-term search visibility.

Also, if you’re just getting started, you don’t necessarily need an agency to improve your SEO efforts. See what you can do yourself first.

11. If you do hire an agency, keep an eye on them

Agencies using the wrong methods can do a lot of damage.

Often by dodgy link-building which may achieve some short-term results but will expose your site to the risk of penalties long-term.

12. Keep up with industry news

Things can change fairy quickly in SEO, so things that work for a while can become against Google’s rules over time.

As with the recent penalties for bloggers reviewing products, Google will rarely spell things out. It will give advice and hints, but it won’t contact you. You’ll often only know you’ve done something ‘wrong’ when you login to Google Search Console and receive a notice like this:

13. Try not to rely too much on Google

Yes, it’s well worth working to improve your rankings, and search traffic is valuable, but don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

Google can change the way it ranks sites, the way it display results at any time, in ways which could adversely affect your search traffic.

Look to build email lists, use social media etc so that you’re attracting customers from a range of sources.

14. Launch a blog / create content

Content is what will help you rank for your target terms. This means content on product pages, homepages and everywhere around the site, but a blog can also help.

It shouldn’t be done just for SEO reasons, as blogs present an opportunity for you to talk about your product and services and the issues around them.

It means you can create the kind of content that people interested in your product or service would appreciate, and begin to build an audience.

15. If you blog, do it regularly

You don’t have to write five articles a day, but regular updates mean your visitors have something to read, and you’ll also be creating fresh content for the search engines.

16. But don’t go keyword-crazy

Yes, you want to target the terms that your customers are likely to search for, but you have to write for humans first of all, or your content will be weak.

17. Aim for evergreen content

Look to create quality content that addresses customers issues and has a longer shelf-life. This‘evergeen content’ is more likely to achieve search rankings over a longer period of time.

18. Use a clear URL structure

People should be able to guess the topic of a page just by looking at the URL.

19. Use internal linking to optimise your site

Effective internal linking is about linking topics and themes together in a more sensible way, for readers and for search engines.

For example, if you are providing cake-decorating services, you’ll have lots of articles using that phrase. They’re not all going to rank for that, so choose the page you’d most like to rank for that term and point the links at that.

It can be very effective, as this internal linking example from the Daily Mail website shows.

20. Use your site search data to find terms to target

You can view the terms your visitors search for on site by looking into your analytics data.

You can learn a lot from this site search data, which can help in many ways.

For search, the keywords that people use on your site could be terms that you aren’t currently targeting via SEO or PPC.

If so, analysing site search data is a great way to find more relevant terms to target. They also tell the the kind of language that customers use.

21. Encourage reviews

Reviews will help to drive conversions but, from an SEO perspective, they help to drive your local SEO visibility.

22. Optimize images

In this article, SEW Editor Christopher Ratcliff explains how to optimize images for SEO, with the help of his cat.

23. Set up Google Analytics

It’s free and it’s essential for you to understand customer behaviour, traffic sources and more.

Here’s a beginner’s guide to Google Analytics.

 

24. Think about UX

For one thing, after mobilegeddon, your mobile ranking depends on factor related to UX.

Site speed is just one. Use tools like Google’s pagespeed insights to learn about your site and how to improve it.

25. Optimize your Google My Business profile

The basics should be there – if you have a physical store, provide opening times, directions and other useful information.

Don’t leave it at that though. Add images, regular updates and more.

26. See who is linking to you and learn from it

You can view the links you receive through tools like Majestic and others. Are you attracting links from relevant sites? If so, which kinds of content / pages are attracting these links?

27. Write a unique title for every page

On Google, you have around 55 characters to make the topic of a page clear to searchers and search engines.

28. Don’t expect results too quickly

The tips here will produce results, but don’t expect overnight success. Good SEO can take time, so be patient and stick with the process.

29. Use a little PPC

If you have the budget, PPC can deliver traffic more quickly.

It can also inform your SEO efforts – you can see which keywords work best for conversions and can help you to improve your landing pages.

30. Write your own product page copy

If you’re selling products that other sites will also have, unique product descriptions can help your site to stand out.

They’re also better for conversions, as the manufacturer descriptions will not have been tested for effectiveness, whereas you can try variations and see what works best for your site

What have I missed? Add your tips below…

To view the original article Click Here

Everything You Need to Know About Online Advertising [Infographic]

Have you experimented with online advertising? Do you know the difference between CPC, CPA and PPC? How will you measure the ROI of your efforts?

Does this alphabet soup make your head spin?

Check out this infographic from Who is Hosting This for details about different advertising options before you invest.

To view the original article Click Here

9 Email Marketing Steps Small Businesses Should Follow

Although a customer only sees the tip of the iceberg, there’s a range of tools and tactics you can implement in the back-end, that will give you the power and potential to achieve really good results.

To get as much involvement, and as much success out of email marketing campaigns, you need to give people what they want, and make the experience really easy and enjoyable. Here are nine tips that will help you do this:

1. MAKE SUBSCRIBING EASY

The easier you make it to subscribe to your email, the more subscribers you will get – simple as that. Make sure it’s on your homepage. 

2. TELL THEM WHAT THEY’RE IN FOR

Tell your subscribers explicitly and simply what they can expect. Just a short statement about whether you intend to send them updates regarding the company, special offers, or anything else will suffice. It’s vitally important to tell your readers what to expect and how often to expect it. Don’t softsoap them, or take advantage of them in any way. Be straightforward and transparent.

3. REWARD THEM FOR SIGNING UP

Send all of your customers a welcome email. This reminds people that they’re on their list, and reassures them that signing up was a worthwhile act. You could even send new subscribers a special offer or exclusive content, in order to welcome them on board.

4. KEEP BRANDING CONSISTENT

Branding is one of the biggest buzzwords in the world for a reason. It works. Your emails should not merely fit into the brand that your company is projecting, it should make a contribution towards building it. Make your emails match the colour scheme of your company, and ensure that the tone of the text is appropriate. If you don’t think you can write well enough to do this, hire someone.

5. MAKE YOUR EMAILS EASY TO READ QUICKLY

Make your emails easy to read via scanning. We’d all like to believe that information we produce and send out is of vital importance to people, but that’s not the case. People receive hundreds of emails a day, and can’t dedicate enough time for everything. You need to be able to grab people’s attention quickly with your emails, so break them up into manageable bite-sized pieces. Use headlines to tease the email, and make the subject line to the point and clear as well.

You should also make it really easy to read from any device. Optimise it for mobile and tablet devices, so people can read on the go. More than 60% of emails are read on a mobile device now.

6. SEND THEM WHAT THEY ACTUALLY WANT

This might seem straightforward, put yourself in your customers shoes, and send them content that they will actually want. One of the most basic facets of consumer psychology is to make people feel as if they are getting something for nothing, and this should be the absolute by-word of your approach to email marketing.

7. KEEP TRACK AND PLAN AHEAD

Keeping a publishing calendar will be extremely useful for you. Don’t underestimate the commitment required to produce a regular viral marketing campaign. If you send too many emails in too short a period of time then you will annoy your subscribers, but if you don’t send anything for months then you will be forgotten. Plan your time accordingly.

8. CHECK EVERYTHING TWICE

There is nothing that screams amateurism more than basic spelling and grammatical errors. Make sure your work is proofread diligently, ideally by someone else, and ideally by someone else with editing skills and a proven reputation. If you can’t acquire such a person, make sure you run it through a suitable word processor spellchecker.

9. TEST EVERYTHING

Finally, test out whether your emails are working, and different approaches to the process, not to mention the visual appearance of your emails. Send test emails to colleagues, or use a testing program to make sure your emails are suitable. Try A/B testing, to see what works better. When you look at your test emails, consider what you’re trying to convey. Get the opinions of others, and encourage them to be constructive and objective.

These tips are simple when you know them, but a lot of it is about being diligent, focusing on the detail, and planning and testing everything you do. If you follow these tips, your customers will love you for it.

If you liked this article you may also like these even more: 

A Mini Guide To Email Open Rates 

7 Steps For A Stellar Welcome Email 

10 Tips To Maximise Your Email Marketing Success

To view the original article Click Here