Using SEO to Drive Business

As soon as you open your business, you have entered the world of SEO marketing.

Whether you were aware of it or not, search engines have already begun scanning and indexing your company’s and employee’s digital properties to see how well they should rank.

Similar to any other form of marketing, SEO, also known as search engine optimization, can be enhanced over time. While every business is unique, there are overlapping SEO strategies that can provide better results in your online marketing leading to faster business growth and brand recognition.

Keyword Optimization

To start driving the best SEO results, place yourself in your ideal customer’s shoes.

If you were to search for your business, what would you search?

While you may have a list of keywords and phrases in mind, you can actually back your decision with reliable data. Keyword Planner, a Google Ads tool, displays data on a given keyword’s search volume, competition, and bidding range. This free tool is invaluable in architecting a strategy based on data when you’re starting with none.

However, these keywords are no longer all that is needed.

Content Optimization

More than ever, Google loves its content. Content includes blog posts, landing pages, and even the images you use on your site. 

To stand out via search engines, organizations need to consistently churn out quality content. The question for any business owner is how consistent is consistent?

As a rule of thumb, determine your organization’s availability, both in terms of time and finances, and stick to a single strategy. Ultimately, the more content you have, the more likely your digital properties are to rank on a search engine, but having a monthly piece is better than not doing anything.

Doing so, enables your organization to create a reputable relationship with website visitors. By driving visitors and keeping them on the page, your rank will naturally improve over time, setting up a solid SEO foundation.

Backlinking

Backlinking is the strategy of creating links from one digital property to another. This improves the digital reputation of the property being pointed to. For instance, a way of enhancing the ranking for RizzoYoung.com would be to create a Facebook profile and then to feature RizzoYoung.com on it. Facebook would then become what’s referred to as a referral source.

Creating backlinks shows Google that your website is growing and trustworthy. Google has stated that even with changes in its algorithm, backlinks are still one of the most valuable factors when determining SEO. One way for your business can begin developing backlinks by partnering with other credible platforms. Another is to take on a guest writer role for various other websites (and then link back to your property).

When creating backlinks, it’s very much a game of quality over quantity. Not only is it better to have a few strong websites pointing to yours, but the content should be of a higher caliber as well. That’s why conducting due diligence plays a significant role in the process of setting up backlink content.

Internal Linking

Not all links need to be backlinks to other websites. Internal linking is the strategy of creating links on the same domain or website that visitors can use to navigate easily throughout the website.

When search engines can easily crawl through a website because of internal linking, it creates a better SEO ranking. Not being able to get to the information is a major negative when ranking for SEO.

At the same time, using too many links creates lower ratings as well. There are tools that you can use to analyze the link structure of your website so that you can better structure your website. Your main goal, with building internal links, is creating a structure that allows visitors to seamlessly flow through your website.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization goes hand in hand with optimizing content. With on-page optimization, it is important to update your content as the SEO ranking factors change. Optimizing your website constantly shows search engines that you are a trustworthy site and not outdated.

Along with optimizing your content, on-page optimization also refers to creating optimized meta-tags, favicons, images, and more. It is important to focus on each element of your website to make sure that your on-page SEO is fully optimized. 

With search engine optimization there are a wide plethora of tactics to be incorporated into one overarching strategy. As such, it can be a real challenge to cover your business across the board.

For help with setting up your digital strategy, get in touch with the SEO specialists at Rizzo Young Marketing.