Are you the owner of a small business that the relentless COVID-19 pandemic has unceremoniously shoved into isolation again? Are you essentially stuck at home (again!) and the only way to market and sell your products or services is over the Internet? Then the survival of your business inevitably depends on maximizing your online presence and leveraging the power of search engine optimization. Let’s take a closer look at how to make SEO really count for your business!
SEO is an indispensable tool if you want to make yourself known to the world and do so in the most effective way possible — no matter what you’re selling. Here’s how to set about it:
Segment your audience
First of all, you need to specify, know, and target your audience so that you can serve their needs in the best way possible. Of course, especially if your business is not unique, a vast number of other folks are trying to do the same thing. What you need to do, is cut through the clutter so you can rise to the top of the heap. SEO and making it count for your business is vital.
Search is still the most targeted source of traffic. Customers love organic results. According to Internet marketing blog, Imforza, 70% of the links search users click on are organic – not paid. That’s substantial.
Do your keyword research
After you identify your target audience, the next important step is keyword research. SEO without keyword research is pointless for any business.
Initially, targeting specific keywords was all that was necessary for a search engine like Google to notice you — but that’s changed. Successful SEO now depends on search queries or long-tail keywords.
Fundamentally, a keyword is a targeted phrase. Consider the products or services you’re selling. Simple examples are:
- Personalized T-shirts
- Accounting software
- Free online storage
On the other hand, a query is a phrase an Internet user types into the search engine, and expects a relevant and useful result. Some examples:
- Affordable personalized T-shirts online
- Good accounting software for under $100
- The best free online storage available
The difference is obvious: intent has been added.
Keywords alone have no intent. Queries do. So if you want your small business to gain the kind of traffic a search engine like Google can bring you, you have to focus on long-tail queries – queries that reveal intent because they’re focused on outcome.
Make sense?
Make your website as engaging as possible
This is actually a no-brainer. Given the competition out there, your prospective customers are unlikely to be drawn to your business if your website is unattractive. Make sure it’s enticing, engaging, easy to navigate, and so on. Have all the necessary information instantly accessible, and the purchase process as uncomplicated as possible. Remember a prospective customer only wants to know what you can do for them and how you can make their lives better!
Your business website should be well optimized with your target keywords so that it’s searchable by Google’s crawlers. Do consider adding some videos to make your website appear on video search results as well. By all means make use of sonic branding. You can choose the best voice actor for the job right here on Voice123!
Make sure your website pages and elements load fast, too. Nothing peeves Internet users faster than a page-loading indicator…
Focus on inbound links
Inbound links are important for SEO. You need to focus on building a position that Google and other search engines reward. Link building should be a part of your SEO strategy for earning backlinks to your website’s content and increasing traffic. Backlinko’s Brian Dean, created the Skyscraper Technique which is a system for turning content into high quality backlinks. Make it your own digital marketing methodology!
All these exercises will increase brand awareness by ranking your website higher on SERPs as per PageRank algorithms. By having a proper link-building strategy in place, you can show your trustworthiness, usefulness, and authority to both your customers and your future prospects.
Take care of the technical bits
SEO is not just about identifying the right queries and using them in your content to boost the visibility of your business on search. There are a few technical aspects that have a huge impact on how Google perceives your website and ranks it on its results page. Meta description, page title, and URLs are a few of them.
Your meta description and page title gives a succinct piece of information about what your voice acting website contains. It should be relevant, unique, and informative. At the same time, your users should be able to read and understand the URL of your website to want to click on it.
Blend in social media
Social media and SEO go hand in hand these days. Social signals have a huge impact on how your business website ranks on search engines.
For your business to come across as credible, active, and value-driven, you need to maintain a strong presence on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, etc.
Creating useful content, adding share buttons to posts, encouraging more shares, and holding contests are few of the many ways in which you can get social signals.
The more social signals you get—be it likes, shares, tweets, retweets, etc.—the better your chances of ranking higher on SERPs become. Share your stories. Keep your fans entertained with your own creations on social media. You have the platforms. Be as creative as possible while using them.
Conclusion
Don’t let the wretched pandemic get you or your business down. By making use of all the online tools and strategies available to you as a business owner, you can turn what might have been a catastrophe into a fantastic opportunity. Make opportunity your New Normal by taking charge of SEO and making it really count for your business!
Finally, we wish you and your business every success!
