Up Your SEO

Now that you know the importance of a website, how will you make your website work for you? SEO is the answer. Before we really dive into SEO and how to make it beneficial to your business, there are a few key words to understand. SEO stands for search engine optimization. The overall goal of utilizing SEO is to be visible to online users, thus bringing user traffic to your website via search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. SEO, in addition to generating traffic, helps build your brand, markets your business, improves e-commerce, targets customers and gives your business a competitive advantage. SEO is a strategy that is vital to surviving online.

Another key term that goes hand-in-hand with SEO is metadata. Metadata is a shortened description of what your online post is about. Most importantly, it is what users are searching for. Are you confused yet? Well, don’t be. We have listed some simple tips that are easy to follow, and that will help you climb your way to the top of search engine pages.

SEO Tips:

1.         Use keywords. In the article, 12 SEO Boosts for Your Wix Website, one of the major components to SEO are keywords. Use keywords that correlate to your company in your descriptions. Keywords can be your tag line, products and services you are providing, or what you are (restaurant, boutique, construction company, etc.). This helps users find what they are looking for. Let’s say you own a restaurant in Sioux Falls that is marketed to locals, but you also want to attract outsiders. Try incorporating “Sioux Falls places to eat” into the back end of your website. This way when locals, and people from outside of town, search for “places to eat in Sioux Falls”, you are already going to have that metadata incorporated on your website which will rank you higher on search engines' pages. This brings us to the next point of...

2.         Location, location, location. According to an article on Local SEO Multi-Location Businesses, the amount of times that people have searched for the phrase “near me” has increased 34 times since 2011! Incorporate your location with every opportunity you get. If you are posting to Facebook, or Instagram, add your business location to everything. Even if you are not doing any other type of SEO or metadata, this will automatically help search engines recognize your existence and location, 

3.         Find your niche. What are you good at? Emphasize on that. Use the qualities that make you unique, so others can find you. If you are a boutique that is trying to set yourself apart, what intriguing words can you use that your target market will search for? If you try and market yourself as an “online boutique”, well there are about a thousand times ten of those. You are most likely not going to end up on Google’s first page because there are so many other boutiques that are larger that already have that key phrase in their metadata. So what do you do?...

4.         Think like your customers. Think of when you Google something. Do you type in a paragraph, or a phrase that correlates to what you are searching for? Most likely the latter. This is what your customers think like as well. In order to know what to incorporate into your metadata, you have to know what words your target clients are searching for. You have to become your target client. Really envision them. What does your target customer look like? What do they do? Most importantly, how do they talk? Are they talking in the latest, trendiest slang, or do they speak in an eloquent vernacular? When you have your target customer thought out you will be able to put yourself in their shoes and really be able to relate to them. Most importantly, you will know what they are going to type into the search bar. Now you know what to type into your metadata.

5.         Constantly consistent. Lastly, if you haven’t noticed, constantly staying consistent is very important in all areas of marketing. Staying consistent with the message your business is sending, constantly providing up-to-date information, and constantly using your keywords in metadata, images, and posts is going to help take your business one step further online. 

These are some of the top tips that are easily applicable to small businesses that will help take you from where you are to where you want to be; on the first page of popular search engines. 

Do you still need more clarification, or help with SEO? Reach us at: contact@thesampsonhouse.com, or via phone at 605.215.0701.