Increasing traffic to a specific part of a website is one thing, but any business with a product or service to sell, really wants to use SEO to do exactly that: sell. Let’s look at five ways in which we can make this a reality for your business.
1. Figure Out How People Search for You
If you’re ranking for ‘safari holidays’ and your potential customers are searching ‘safari vacations”, they simply won’t find you. To ensure your use of SEO is effective, ask yourself the following questions:
· Are you talking to your customers?
Check case studies and note down any common terminology.
· Have you done some keyword research?
Compare search volumes of keywords using a free tool such as Keyword Everywhere.
· Have you scouted the competition?
Find out what terminology rival companies are using in the descriptions of your products or services.
· Have you checked Google Search Console?
It’s free and will provide you with the search terms potential customers are currently using to find you.
2. Walk Before You Run
First things first, if your website is slow to load, no one will hang around to buy what you offer. Here’s a quick-fire checklist to consider before investing your time an energy in SEO:
· Site speed
With Google using site speed as a ranking factor, it’s worth checking yours via Google’s Page Speed Insights tool.
· Minify images
Running your site’s images through a tool like TinyPNG before uploading, will ensure that your images are optimised.
· Check for redirect chains
A redirect chain is when one URL redirects to another which redirects to another, and so on. Link equity is lost with each link, indicating to Google how reputable your site is, increasing load time for potential customers. Checking redirect chains on your site can be done via Screaming Frog.
3. Great Content is King
Great content draws users to your site and gives Google an indication that you’re worth being shown more prominently in search results.
Let’s take a look at some examples of great content:
· Do as we do
Creating written or video tutorials for potential customers.
· Product comparisons
With your customers already knowing who your competitors are, don’t miss out on the opportunity to take the bull by the horns and own the narrative.
· Think outside the box
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to content ideas. In 2006, Blendtec launched their video series ‘Will it blend?’. Anything from frisbees to iPods were put in a blender. It’s often the original ideas like this that go viral.
4. Building Links
With a small existing audience, how do you get people to find and talk about your products online, thus telling Google to feature you more prominently in search results? Let’s build some links:
· Citations
Adding your business to respected local and industry online directories with the same details on each will help Google recognise you as one business.
· Supplier’s testimonial
Offer to write your suppliers a testimonial with a link back to your own website.
· Find mentions and reach out for links
Ask for a link from websites already mentioning your brand. You can use Google Alerts to get notified when someone mentions your brand.
· Check who links to your competitors
Ahrefs checks which domains are linking to your competitors, possibly revealing industry blogs and lists who could be willing to do the same for you.
5. Look great in search results
Ok, so you’re up and running. But what about getting people to make the next step and actually buy from you? Let’s capitalise on what limited search results real estate you’ve got:
· Page titles
Try to stay in the region of 60-80 characters so Google doesn’t cut you off. Include your brand name and an accurate description of your page.
· Meta descriptions
With Google automatically pulling through a snippet of text from your page, ensure that this taster is as enticing for the reader as possible. This can be done by adding custom meta descriptions. WordPress users can install a plugin like Yoast to do this.
· Product schema
For sales of physical products, Product schema can bulk out your listing in Google’s search results. Taking up more space on the page increases the likelihood that users will miss your competitors and come to you.
As always from the Marketing Team at Byter, good luck!