You just started a business that you’re super passionate about. Now how do you expand your reach and attract new customers?
Gone are the days of word-of-mouth advertising and trying to find the right target audience. The truth is, there’s already an audience searching for exactly what you’re selling. All you have to do is help them find it.
In the digital age, everything you need is right at your fingertips. And search engine optimization, or SEO, is your best friend. It’s how you bring traffic to your website by making it appear in more search engine results. And you’ll need some SEO tips and tricks.
7 SEO Tips and Tricks to Get You Started.
No matter what kind of business you run, these should apply to you.
1. Build a Buyer Persona
This is the first step in any inbound marketing strategy. You can’t market effectively if you don’t know who you’re marketing to.
Your research should go beyond the typical age, race, and gender demographics. Sweetgrass Marketing recommends conducting extensive customer analysis. This will help you better understand your customers’ top goals and frustrations, as well as how they use search engines, which brings us to our next tip.
2. Use Keywords
This is perhaps the most important element of website SEO. Keywords are what people type in when they are looking for a specific product or service.
Start by getting to know your consumer base. As a business owner, you’ve probably already done that (see above). Then, compile a list of words relevant to your audience.
Google has a user-friendly Keyword Planner that can tell you what people are searching for, and how often they are searching for it.
Enter the keywords for your business, and Google will come up with related ones. Then, you can pick which ones you want to emphasize that will bring the highest volume of traffic to your website. It’s that easy!
3. Blog… Regularly
Businesses that blog generate 126% more leads than businesses who don’t. If you’re not blogging, you’re not doing it right.
Become an authority with your audience by regularly posting content relevant to your market. If you need help generating ideas, customer questions are a great place to start. There are a number of forums, like Quora and Reddit, specifically for this purpose.
You might also consider starting a series or regular feature to keep readers coming back. The more you post, the more search results your website will appear in. This is because, as your blog gains traction, other websites will link back to yours (more on that later).
Join your market’s blogging community by commenting on and sharing other posts. Guest posting is another way to reach your target audience where they’re already hanging out.
And be sure to read your competitors’ work so you know exactly what you’re up against, and so you don’t miss out on any industry news.
4. Use Social Media as a Tool
Start by evaluating which social network is most used by your target audience. Then, develop a content strategy for that network. How will you measure reach? By likes? Comments? Views? Followers?
It’s not enough to simply post your content, though. You also have to engage with your audience. This helps bring the human element into your business; it’s run by people, for people. Potential customers will be less likely to reach out to you on social media if they notice that your business is slow at responding.
Social media can also give you a glimpse at trending topics within your community. Once you’ve established a solid social media presence, you can start using it to field questions and generate ideas for that blog we just talked about.
5. Take Advantage of Video
In 2018, Hubspot found that marketers who use video generate revenue 49% faster than marketers who don’t. Moreover, four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it.
Customers want to feel understood, not pressured. Video helps engage with and relate to them in a more intimate way. It makes your website feel like less of a targeted ad, and more like a curated experience.
In the era of live streaming, video performs exceptionally well on social media. More people are likely to share it with their friends than a written article. Plus, Google (which owns YouTube) loves video, so keep that in mind as you develop your SEO for business strategy.
If you’re not confident in your editing skills, online tutorials can be incredibly helpful. It might also be a good idea to outsource a professional.
6. Optimize for Mobile Users
A 2017 study showed that 69% of digital consumers in the U.S. use their smartphones. This is more than the 61% who use laptops, or the 47% who use desktops.
Long story short: Your website has to be phone-friendly. If it’s not, you risk leaving out an entire demographic of your audience. Nobody will want to stick around if your text is hard to read, your graphics don’t load, or your pages are hard to find.
You can avoid this by making your website fast, clutter-free, and easy to navigate. If you’re looking for more resources, Sweetgrass Marketing has a step-by-step guide to help you get started.
7. Don’t Underestimate Linking
Remember when I said other websites will begin linking back to yours? Monitor the quantity and quality of those sites with tools such as Monitor Backlinks and Ahrefs.
It’s not enough to get the most backlinks to your site; you also want to make sure that the sites linking to you are legit and authoritative. A backlink serves as a vote of confidence. Your ratings won’t go up if the only sites linking back to you are scams.
Don’t forget to check your competition’s backlinks. This might help you find other sites you can reach out to for link-building. And again, engaging with your audience through social media (see above) will help boost your backlinks among other reputable sites in your community.
Be Patient
The internet won’t make you a billionaire overnight. But these SEO tips and tricks will help you reach corners of the web you might not even know existed.
The key is to set aside the time and resources to implement these strategies effectively. Monitor your site’s reach with tools like Google Analytics or Chartbeat, then make adjustments as needed.
Lastly, Sweetgrass Marketing offers a variety of services to maximize your business’ potential. The key is finding what works for you.
Happy marketing!