SEO is an essential part of any company’s marketing arsenal, whether it’s a super-company or a one- or two-person business. A good search engine optimization strategy can help you break into whole new market segments and expose your brand to countless new potential customers.
Of course, all this sounds very nice until you start to get a little more familiar with SEO and realize that it’s a deep, complex industry in itself. Still, if you’re in that situation, take a look at the tips below, which bring together the most important things regarding search engine optimization you should be aware of in 2023.
Make sure your company is seen
In other words, have your company’s details (name, address, contact information) displayed in as many places as possible. This is an important ranking factor for smaller companies. The more recognized sites you get on, the higher Google (and other search engines, presumably) will rank your own site.
It’s vital that whenever your contact information (name, phone number, address, website, etc.) appears anywhere, it should always be exactly the same, right down to the letter, as it is on your site, as well as in the Google Business Profile of yours. The more discrepancies, the more confused search engines can get. They may even stop giving your mentions as much value as they should.
Develop mobile-friendly landing pages
Responsive design (which allows a website to appear correctly on all devices) is no longer a benefit, it’s a basic requirement. More people browse from smartphones than desktop computers, and if you’re not paying attention to these visitors, you could be losing a lot of traffic and potential business. If all of this wasn’t enough, Google has been ranking content based on the mobile versions of websites since 2018, so if your site isn’t performing well on mobile devices, your desktop ranking will drop.
Responsive design should impact all elements and content on your site, including landing pages. Getting landing pages to display properly on smartphones can be quite a challenge, as there is much less space on a mobile screen to represent your sophisticated, intuitive, and responsive design. You need to make it fairly easy to use all major site features, from navigation to tapping call-to-action buttons.
All that said, it’s well worth it to ensure your site displays perfectly for mobile users. This thing is not about some distant future anymore, it’s our present. So, don’t hesitate in this matter.
Create quality content
The quality of your published content is directly proportional to the amount of traffic it attracts (or can ever attract in the future). The better your content, the more visitors you’ll get. Of course, it doesn’t matter what kind of content we’re talking about – it’s essential that whatever you publish is relevant to your website/blog visitors, or more specifically, your ideal customers.
SEO is closely linked to content marketing, which is all about attracting potential customers to your website or blog with useful, valuable, informative content, building a trust-based relationship with them and ultimately converting them into customers. So you need to know why these users are interested: what they’re searching for, what they’re willing to consume as content. Tools such as free Google Analytics allow you to track the performance of your content. You can use it to see what’s popular – that will be the kind of content you should offer more of to your audience.
Use long-tail keywords
Keyword optimization and usage went through some changes over the years. Whereas it was enough to use some keyword a number of times in a 1000-word article, now you need much more to target a word or phrase.
Ever more people are putting their companies on the internet, so there is a fierce competition for more words. Even though this isn’t as big a problem as it seems, you should know: simple, everyday keywords rarely really target users who are specifically interested in what you have to offer.
The solution is so-called long-tail keywords, which consist of at least three phrases that help you target a much narrower niche. This makes them less sought after, but also less competitive. Long-tail keywords are so effective because it is much easier for a search user to express their intent in three words than in one (‘repairing a laptop’ versus ‘professional laptop repair service in Brooklyn’).
You can target these more specific, more definitive searchers with the right long-tail keywords. This way you’ll attract an audience of people who are much more likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
Use metadata correctly
Metadata is primarily for search engines – it provides information about different elements of your website. For example, the alt tags of images, which make visual elements readable for search engines. Search engines are not yet able to decide what an image represents, so it is common to use alt text to provide this information in the form of keywords or a short description.
A piece of web content can have plenty of metadata, which can be optimized by the placement of relevant keywords. Here are some tips on this technical side of SEO:
- Write a click-through meta description for your pages. These won’t directly help SEO, but the more clicks you get, the more important your content will be to Google (and other search engines).
- Beware of keyword stuffing – it not only doesn’t help, but can even lead to penalties in some search engines.
- Aim to fill your metadata fields with informative, concise, relevant text where all keywords are meaningful and natural.
What has been said about keyword stuffing and natural keyword use also applies to the main text content of pages. It’s a good idea to have all texts written in a natural and readable way.
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Conclusion
It is difficult for a small business to compete and promote itself without SEO nowadays. In order for your efforts in the main area to be productive, you need to take care of this supporting element.
SEO can help any business that has finally decided to capitalize on its online presence. It is beneficial for any type of enterprise from law firms to travel companies and everything in between. Even for laptop and iPhone repair companies, such as Smart Addiction which runs this website: www.smartaddiction.com. The more competitive your industry is – the more important it is to contact pros that can get search engines working for you!
