Don’t pay hundreds of dollars for SEO services when you can do it.

There’s no use in investing time and money to build a beautiful website if your customers can’t find it. But how can you make your site stand out in the vast reaches of the internet?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is how you help customers find your site when they search on Google, Bing and others. By building your site correctly and optimizing your keywords in your content, you’ll drive more traffic to your page and generate more sales.

It starts at the beginning

When you start building your website, there are some things you should do before you ever launch it.

1. Analyze your competitors – What keywords do they use? What kind of pages have they created? Is their site user-friendly? Is their content meaningful?
2. Check their backlinks – See what sites are linking to your competitors. This research step is useful for link prospecting.
3. Plan your navigation and internal linking – Determine what you want to highlight. Cross link your internal pages where it makes sense.
4. Set up Google Analytics – it’s free to use, & offers businesses insight into where website visitors are coming from, which landing pages’ people are clicking to from search engines, and what people are searching for before visiting your site.

Once your website is complete, take these extra steps to boost your site even further:

1. Create a sitemap – There are several sitemap generators you can use if your website builder doesn’t have one.
2. Utilize Google’s Search Console – It can help you understand how your site is performing on Google Search.
3. Sign up for Bing’s Webmaster Tools – Another free service that helps you manage your site’s presence in Bing search results. 
4. Use Google’s Keyword Planner – This free tool helps you compare your keywords to what users are typing. This helps you grab the highest ranking keywords and use them in your content to help boost your pages.

But I thought I need to put a long list of words ‘behind’ my website.

Don’t overstuff it! 20 years ago, the search engines just looked for keywords to help filter their results, but as the AI has improved, the long list of keywords, no matter if they were valid or not, embedded into your site is no longer valid and actually hurts your rankings.

Today, keywords are found in your title, description and content. The keywords you use should be pertinent to your content on your page, not just random ‘click-bait’ lists.

Build links to your site

The more sites that carry links to your site, the higher you will rank on searches. Focus on the quality of the links.

Create local search listings and fully optimize them. When optimizing your listings, use quality images, creative content, include your hours of operations, and list your products or services. But keep it consistent! If you change something on one site, you will need to change it on all the places you are listed, so make sure you maintain a list of where each listing is and how to update it. You can also check Open Site Explorer to verify where you are listed.

Claim your Google Places listing and other listing sites like Nextdoor, Yelp, and Angi. You can add your website to the local chamber, industry listing sites, associations and other small businesses that work together. Every link from another site will help your visibility on the search engines.

Get social!

Social media is a great ally in your SEO strategy. It’s just one more way to be found.

Get on as many social media platforms as you can handle, but make sure that your content is fresh and pertinent to each audience. And again, remember to be consistent! This includes your URL, address and phone number listed as well as your messaging.

Your company’s social media profile will also rank in the search results when people search for your company or for related terms.

Don’t expect immediate results!

While SEO should be a part of any business strategy, small businesses shouldn’t expect substantial improvements. It’s an on-going strategy that takes time and effort.

If you feel overwhelmed, you’re not the only one. We’ve helped several small businesses get off the ground. Just take it one step at a time. If you just can’t wrap your head around it, or just need a little advice, we are here for you. Give us a call and we can walk you through it.

Call or text Brian Hale at 940-224-6315.