Understanding SEO and how it pertains to your business goals will help you take advantage of search and drive more traffic to your website or page. Companies of all sizes will benefit from optimizing their online presence. By incorporating some of these easy tips, you can increase your company’s ranking, resulting in more traffic and online sales.
What is SEO? The acronym stands for search engine optimization, and refers to writing content and developing websites with keywords, tags, and unique content that can increase the rank of an article, page, or the overall website.
Tips for How Your Business Can Take Advantage of Search
Identify the keywords or phrases that people would use to search for your business. These have changed slightly as mobile device usage increases, and people speak into their phones rather than typing them on a computer. If you sell shoes, then some of the keywords would include well-known brand names you sell, men’s shoes, women’s shoes, shoes for children, shoes in your specific location.
Use geo identifiers in your website. Google maps is ideal for this. You simply embed a map onto your website which includes the physical location. Digital photos taken at your place of business often include a geocache and can be placed on the website or page you want to rank for that area.
Set up social media accounts and link them to your website and vice versa. Don’t overlook the benefit of hashtags when posting links on these sites.
Carefully consider the overall layout and design of your website. Photographs draw the eye, but for a site to rank, it does need solid content. You can also edit the alt text of your images to help improve SEO.
Content should be written with both the reader and bots in mind. Engaging content that delivers true value to the reader is imperative. When writing content, most people will naturally use secondary keywords related to the main article keywords. Overall, the main keyword density should be 3-4%. The keyword should be used in both the first and last paragraphs.
“H” tags play an important role in how search engine bots read content. A title is typically written in an h1 format, while the remaining content will be posted in descending order from h2 on down. The “h” tags essentially provide a value to each of the phrases, with h1 being the most important.
Add content on a regular basis. You can add more pages to a website using a blog, or by adding more services or items. Whether you add it daily or weekly, be sure to add it on a regular schedule.
One of the most important, and often overlooked items is to make certain that your website has a sitemap and that it has been submitted to the search engines.
Seminars and Workshops
The Catawba Valley Community College’s Small Business Center offers free seminars and workshop to the public and greater business community. Most are online for convenience. We recommend checking their workshop schedule often here as they have often have classes on SEO, content writing, marketing, and more to help enhance your online visibility.
Partnership with The Chamber
Joining your local Chamber can also benefit your business’s SEO by increasing credibility and trust, providing valuable backlinks, and improving your online visibility, which ultimately leads to better search engine rankings and more traffic.
Additionally, all of our Partners receive a complimentary listing on our Business Directory, where they can embed keywords to allow visitors to find them more easily, and share a link that goes directly to their website. Backlinks from credible organizations like chambers can help boost your website’s rankings in search engine results pages, especially in local searches. If you’re an existing Partner and need assistance with updating your online business directory, please contact Kathy Austin, Communications & Projects Specialist here.
Chamber Partners also have the opportunity to write a best practice blog post or upgrade to an enhanced online business directory listing to further amplify their SEO. Learn more here.
Not yet a Partner? We invite you to learn more here. Looking to hire a local expert to help with your website needs? Check out our business directory here.