Generating new customers can be frustrating.
As a small business, you’ve probably asked yourself the question, “How can I increase my online traffic to compete with the big players?” The answer to this question is SEO. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, involves making your website easier to find for new customers. By altering on page elements and building a website optimally, search engines like Google will prioritize your web page to customers conducting online searches. There are many strategies when it comes to SEO, varying in complexity. For our purposes, we’re going to focus on some of the simple methods to immediately drive traffic to your website.
Keyword Selection
When deciding which web pages to display, Google’s search engine scours the web page for words, called keywords, that are the closest match to the users search. It is important to sprinkle these keywords throughout your web page so your website is easier to find online. Potential new customers will not be searching for your business by name. They will be searching for the products and services that your business offers instead. Identify the keywords that are most relevant to your business. Once you’ve identified these keywords, it’s important to use them properly in your website content. Content like well written blog posts will increase traffic to your website and can engage new customers visiting your website for the first time.
Content
Our next piece of advice is related to your web page’s content. After you’ve decided on a set of keywords, it’s not as simple as pasting in the same word hundreds of times. Search engine algorithms are so advanced they can distinguish between relevant, quality content and content designed to cheat the system. Even if a keyword stuffed page makes it through the system and gets clicked on, a new customer will immediately leave the site after seeing it’s full of garbage content. One of the simplest ways to create frequent, quality content is to make constant blog posts. Blog posts are a great way to implement targeted keywords, inform potential new customers about your company, and engage with existing customers to keep them coming back. For more keyword and content advice, we recommend this article from Forbes.
Website architecture
Our last piece of advice relates to how your business’s website is built. Most small businesses do not have the resources or knowledge to construct an optimized website. One easy way to make your website better is to include a contact page. This sounds like common knowledge, but many small business run websites without any contact information, or even an address. Additionally, a good website should be optimized for mobile devices. Mobile devices are on the precipice of overtaking personal computers as the go to web searching device. To make your website easier to access for potential new customers, mobile optimization is a necessity. For more website tips and tricks we recommend this article from Small Business Trends .
Calvin Longhurst