Countless hours are spent navigating the Internet to search and find information and products. Google processes more than 3.5 billion searches every day. Needless to say, companies are striving to understand and leverage search engine optimization (SEO), a method which helps their websites rise to the top of the search ranking for queries. If your business is interested in attracting existing or potential customers to your website, you’ll need to know the basics about SEO. Webopedia defines SEO as “…a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine - including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.”
A common misperception is that creating and implementing an SEO strategy is expensive. While it is certainly true that large companies have SEO strategies costing tens of thousands of dollars a month, there are also cost-effective strategies suited for a small business. Free starter guides are offered by major search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo. Other affordable tips for the small business owner to keep in mind are presented in an Entrepreneur article, Jayson Demers, Founder and CEO of AudienceBloom and Ivana Taylor of DIY Marketers offers SEO trends. Some fundamental tactics include:
- Write rich content – All of your web pages, especially your main pages, need to include concise, descriptive, and relevant content. Also ensure that your images are in the proper format for quick loading time and they are titled appropriately.
- Optimize for mobile – Most searches are done on mobile devices. If your website doesn’t display attractively, it leads to a poor user experience. Google will also rank it lower on mobile searches if your website is not mobile-optimized.
- Maintain a clean website address structure – Make your website address aka Uniform Resource Locator (URL) easy to navigate. Your URLs should have a breadcrumbs trail and feature readable indicators. Avoid using numbers or random strings of text in your URLs. A good example is “http://www.mybusiness.com/product” while a bad example is “http://www.mybusiness.com/%20prod?3F”.
- Add Internal and External Link Building – Adding internal and external links on your website may increase your SEO ranking. When referring to an external website, ensure that it is a reputable source as low quality links may hurt your ranking.
- Fix your broken links (404 not found errors) – This can be one of the most annoying experiences for your user and means the webpage could not be reached. This may also hurt your SEO ranking with search engines. Make sure that any broken links on your website are fixed.
If visitors can’t find your website, you’ll be missing out on business opportunities. While there is no shortcut to rising to the top of ranking, keeping these tactics in mind will help improve the visibility of your website.
Interested in starting, improving, or implementing your website strategy? Ninestone has the experience to support you in this effort that fits within your business needs and budget.
August, 2016
Ninestone Team