SEO is a collection of strategic actions that help you improve the ranking of your website. This, in turn, means more traffic on your page and a wider reach for your business. It’s a lengthy process and you might need a digital marketing course along the way. But, it’s important for your business.
Why?
No matter how developed or successful your business is, it needs SEO. Through it, you can control your rankings. To some extent, this means that you can control how many people arrive on your page.
What’s more, you’ll be in charge of how many leads or customers you get in a period of time. Gaining the trust of search engines, like Google, can help your customers have confidence in the product you offer.
There are many different actions that you can take to improve your SEO. Each business has different needs. But there are some things that every business owner should keep in mind.
Best SEO Practices for Your Business Website
- Write One-of-a-Kind Product Descriptions
Having on-point descriptions is beneficial for 2 main reasons: your visitors will have more information about what they’re seeing and so will Google. No written content on a page means a hard time for the ranking algorithm.
Source: Topshop
In order to make your descriptions as effective as possible, you should write the content yourself. Include some target keywords, use long-tail variations and LSI keywords—as many as are appropriate without stuffing them in. You don’t want to overdo it; you just want to make sure that your purposes are met and your visitors are fully informed.
- Talk About Your Mission and Vision
People should be more than just customers to you. Your business should have a human face to it and work to build relationships with your clients.
A good way to do this is to have an ‘About’ page where you present the mission and vision of the company. What do you care about? Why is your company better than others at providing a particular service or product? And, most importantly, why should people support you?
Source: Microsoft.com
If you are unfamiliar with these concepts, here’s what they mean:
- A mission statement defines the business of the company. It describes the objectives and how they will be achieved.
- A vision statement talks about what the desired position of the company is. It’s something that is unlikely to be achieved, but it should be strived for.
Having these clearly defined will help your company in many ways. You will identify your corporate culture and your values. You can even establish a strategy and perspective for the future. These things lead to internal improvements as well. For example, they inspire employees to be more productive and work toward a common goal.
The ‘About’ page is also a good place to mention any relevant awards won or important actions taken by your business that have supported your mission statement. In this way, your customers will see your level of commitment and dedication to your principles and vision for the future.
- Make Use of Schema
If you’re unfamiliar with Schema, even the name can sound a bit intimidating. But Schema Markup is just a piece of code that you can integrate into your page. This helps search engines offer users more useful content.
What this piece of code does is tell Google what your text means, instead of just what it is. You can use this method on a part of your page that you feel is representative. Or on a part that will answer people’s questions, like a FAQ section.
Using this markup is a way to let people know what your page is about before they actually enter your website. It’s a good way to let people know that you can help them.
- Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Even before the pandemic, most browsing was done from mobile phones. Knowing this, you can see why it’s important to have your website optimized for mobile. Not only for SEO, but also to offer a better user experience.
Source: Google Developers
Building your website to be mobile-friendly from the start will also improve loading speeds. The speed of mobile data is significantly slower than broadband. So taking this into consideration for your website will help you hit two birds with one stone.
- Blog about Local News
For a business, especially in the beginning, it’s very important to engage with the local community. This will convey that you can look beyond sales, and care about people. Being locally grounded and informed is an important factor in building confidence and trust.
You can keep people posted about the news in your domain. Talk about the latest discoveries, changes, or technologies. You can also include ways in which your services can improve the local community.
Such a blog can be a great place to showcase your local involvement. If you sponsor events or movements in your local area, this is a great opportunity to present them. You might also inspire people to support your cause.
- Showcase Customer Testimonials
People can be reluctant to make purchases based only on how a business presents itself. They will feel much more confident in their decision if it’s supported by the experiences of previous customers. Displaying customer testimonials helps people trust your company and encourages future business.
Source: Salesforce
Reviewing a product is not something people do naturally. Therefore, when someone feels the need to talk about their purchase, it means it provoked strong emotions. Having testimonials from satisfied customers on your website will help undecided people trust your company and move forward with their purchase.
- Start Link Building
Link building is a process through which you obtain links from relevant and authoritative websites. Your focus should be on the quality of your backlinks, rather than the quantity. Having a high diversity of external links is a deciding factor in your search engine ranking.
LinkDoctor.io conducted a survey with hundreds of SEO specialists. They asked them about the effectiveness of link building:
Source: LinkDoctor.io Link Building survey 2020
As you can see, most of them agreed that link building is something worth doing. From guest posting, press releases, or even local business directories, you have lots of options and many ways in which to improve..
What is important to remember is to avoid ‘black hat’ methods, like buying links. Even though they sound like the easier way out, they’re generally frowned upon and don’t really add any value to the life of your audience.
- Make Use of Local Citations
Local citations are an online mention of your company name, address, or phone number. They can show up on local business directories, social platforms, or just about any local website or app.
Why are those useful?
They help people find local businesses, while also improving your search engine rankings. If the citations are accurate, they can have a great influence on your reputation and revenue.
Knowing this, active location data management is a necessity for your business. But, you can choose if you want to actively influence this or not. For example, even if it’s not considered a citation per se, having a Google My Business listing is a great way to be discovered locally.
- Have a Strong Social Media Presence
This one is a no-brainer. Being active on social media means that instead of waiting for people to find your business, you go out and approach them. It’s also a good way of obtaining backlinks.
Connecting with your clients on a social media platform will help you get to know your audience better. You become more approachable and human and trustworthy.
Keep This in Mind for Your Business Website
Even if it looks a little bit overwhelming, you should never ignore SEO for your business website. It can help you rank higher—meaning you’ll have more traffic on your page in the long run. And, after all, SEO strategies provide a means through which you can improve the quality of your content and leave a mark on the lives of your audience.
There are many things you can do to improve your SEO. From setting up your author profile, to actively engaging in your local community. All of these are methods for getting closer to your clients. Other ways focus on the user experience you’re offering people, like building your website for mobile.
All in all, if you focus on improving people’s lives, you’re probably ticking all the right boxes for SEO.
