7 simple ways to improve your local business with SEO

SEO guy checking for google algorithm update

You must have seen the term SEO at some point while you were surfing the web. Perhaps, you heard it during a conversation or at an event, but you can’t quite wrap your head around it. Truth is, it is not as hard as many people make it seem. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it simply means optimizing search engine visibility for your online business.

Local SEO, therefore, means enhancing your local business’ search engine visibility. This means ensuring that your business page is rich enough to pop up when someone makes a search for products or services you offer within your local community or city. But how exactly do you go about it? Maui SEO company Ocean Epic has provided us with 7 easy steps to take your business to the next level using local SEO.

  1. Get on Google My Business

You may not already know this, but many people depend on Google to determine whether a business is known or authentic. Google My Business is Google’s way of verifying the existence of a business and sharing its major details. You should create a page, take advantage of Google posts in your account, urge customers to share reviews, and leave authentic responses to reviews.

If your business can be verified by Google, you’d earn a slot at the side-bar section of Google local searches.

how to do keyword searches on the internet
  • Get your details right

Details like your name, phone number and addresses must be correct and consistent. You must ensure this is included on your site as crawlable HTML text. But more importantly, ensure you make it as easy as possible for anyone to find you, as well as for search engines to locate you. This would ensure your NAP details are the same across all platforms. Otherwise, Google will not add you to search result pages if they can’t verify your basic details.

  • Use Social Media

Social media have become the hub for everyone, including your potential customers. As this trend continues, it will be wise to share your Google My Business link on your different social media pages. So, instead of waiting for potential clients to search online for products or services you offer, you’ll be taking it to them via social media.

  • Make your site Mobile-friendly

While the figures are not exact, it is estimated that more than 60% of all Internet users for 2020 used mobile devices. What this means is that more than half of the world’s Internet user population are constantly getting their information by means of a mobile device. You’ll be losing a large chunk of that potential market if your site is not mobile friendly. Even within your local community, chances are that a majority of them surf the web with a smartphone.

  • Create local content

If you’re going to be focused on a local community, you must ensure that your posts are easily relatable by members of that community. It must be local and easy to understand. It is also important to use local pictures, scenery and places on your site. Writing about general topics may attract a large audience, but it’s better to focus on local stories, news, events, gatherings and other subjects.

  • Optimize for keywords, title tags, URL and meta description

Keyword optimisation is a crucial component of SEO. It deals with using the right words and catch-phrases that searchers are more likely to use on search engine. Go into the mind of the average searcher and determine possible keywords that the individual would input when searching for products or services you offer. Use those same words generously in your content for titles and subtitles, as well as in the body of the articles.

For example, “plumber near me” or “carpenter in Brooklyn”. However, be careful not to go against Google’s regulations concerning keywords. Only apply them naturally and where they make sense.

  • Evaluate and audit

SEO is not a one-off. It is not something you do and wrap up. SEO is a continuous exercise that requires frequent audit to know how your SEO campaign is faring and what changes need to be effected. There are several types of SEO audit, including On-page SEO audit, Google My Business audit, Website audit, Competitor analysis, and so on. All of these are meant to monitor your site’s progress and ensure it is in line with your business goals.

Tips for Improving Visibility & Choosing the Right SEO Company

If you want your business to flourish in this age, you definitely need a website for it. Most people don’t know this, but it is not enough to just make a website. Your website will not do much if you do not optimize it for SEO. While you can do some of the basic SEO work yourself, it is best to hire the professionals for the job to get the desired results in time.

An SEO Company will help you optimize your website’s on-page and off-page content to rank it higher in the search results.

Tips to Increase the Visibility of Your Website

Google search visibility
  • Optimize your website’s content for SEO. Use keywords naturally, follow proper sequencing with the help of H1s, H2s, etc.
  • Update the content of the website regularly so Google and other search engines notice you.
  • Use optimized URLs. Optimizes URLs contain your main keywords and give a clear idea of what the page is about.
  • Write long-form content and offer value to make visitors stay on your pages for long. Keep in mind that Google counts the time visitors spend on your web pages as one of the metrics of ranking your website SERPs.
  • Create backlinks on other platforms – blogs most importantly. Write valuable content, have it posted on other blogs, benefit from their traffic by including a backlinks in the posts. That’s called guest-blogging.
  • Use proper tags for the images on your website. Google crawlers won’t recognize your images unless you include Alt tags with them and accompany them with optimized captions.
  • Keep researching and identifying the most relevant, hot, trending, etc. keywords to incorporate in your website content.
  • Create a blog and write posts regularly to get visitors on it.
  • Optimize your website for mobile devices because you might not even appear in the search results of mobile users if your website is not optimized for their devices.

Now, an important thing to realize here is that you do not have to do it all on your own. SEO companies such as rankglider.com can help you rank your websites high up in the search engines. Also, find below an overview on how you can pick the right search engine optimization agency.

Tips to Pick the Right SEO Agency

Ask for Their Portfolio

When you hire an SEO company for the job, you have to make sure you review their older work. It would be helpful if the company provides you with recent successful projects, which shouldn’t be older than a year.

When looking at SEO Company’s work, keep in mind to see if their work is according to the new
SEO trends to ensure that they are capable to get your website to the top.

See Farther from SEO

Conversion rate optimization

Companies that generally work on sales and conversions are better at Conversion Optimization. Conversion optimization is the process of making your website content good enough to convert the traffic into paying customers. Your SEO company should do it for you. Eventually, you will start driving sales and leads from the traffic that you have.

This is a very systematic process, and it requires a lot of expertise. For a website to last longer in top searches, it is required.

Lower the Cost, Higher the Risk

Website owners don’t know this, but bad SEO can lead to long-lasting damage to your website. The inexpensive SEO Company may charge you less, but it can put your website in danger. If the SEO is not up to the mark, it may lead you to strikes from Google, and your website may fall into the blacklisted websites. As a result, your website will not be visible to anyone, and you will have to fix your website all over from the beginning. SEO companies that charge too little for their services can use black-hat SEO techniques. These techniques benefit you instantly but get you in trouble soon after.

A Systematic Approach

An important thing you will notice about the best SEO companies is that they have a systematic approach to their services. They use proper methods, analytics, and SEO tools to rank your website higher. They will start with proper keyword research to find the terms that work the best for you. Furthermore, they will keep identifying the methods that are working the best for your website and continue to filter the methods that are not. Most importantly, the right company will provide you with regular reports so you can see where your website is at any given moment.

Conclusion

Hiring a agency to do Search engine optimization for your company is surely not easy at all. There are many factors that you need to keep in mind. When you hire an SEO company, you should be extra vigilant because your website’s visibility depends on proper optimization.

WHY SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION IS BENEFICIAL TO YOUR BUSINESS

This article is meant to discuss the benefits of Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO. Before we consider the benefits of SEO, we must first understand what it is all about. Without knowing the meaning of what you are optimizing, you might not find the benefits.

WHAT IS SEO?

seo process for new website

In a layman’s term, SEO is the process business owners, and organizations go through to make sure their sites rank high in the search engines.

 Let me break that down for you: 

If you have an article or a blog post on, how to bake a cake at home, you need to optimize it to show it in top results of Google 

Now that you know the meaning of Search Engine Optimization, then let’s move over to the benefits.

BENEFITS OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

website optimization tips

Because of the wonders SEO does, because of its effectiveness and because of the profits. It has. There are many benefits of SEO, but we have outlined the top six ways it can help your business they include,

HELPS CREATE USER-FRIENDLY 

SEO is not all about making your website rank higher alone; it also makes sure your site satisfies your users. Many things make your website user-friendly. They include quality content, decreased bounce rates, mobile compatibility, fast load times, effective navigation. If your site doesn’t have any or all of this, Google or any other search engines won’t consider your site for optimization. So, if your website is optimized, definitely your site will satisfy your users.

HELPS TO BUILD BRAND CREDIBILITY

search engine optimization for brands

Brand credibility means the extent to which your target audience trusts your brand. Nowadays, people go online in search of many things. When a searcher goes online in search of one particular blog content, he goes with the mindset of finding it on the top page. He believes that’s where he can get credible results. As such, having your content on the top sheet, especially in the top position, makes your site more reliable and trustworthy. So, as a business owner or an organization, if you need an online marketing strategy to increase your brand credibility, then SEO is the best.

HELPS TO BUILD BRAND AWARENESS

Brand awareness means to what extent a target audience recognizes your brand. According to Investopedia “Brand awareness is a marketing term that describes the degree of consumer recognition”. Like I have said earlier search engine optimization guarantees that your product gets to page 1 of any search engine. So once you retain the top spot, internet users will be able to see your site more. Then, your link is clicked more frequently leading, making your business or brand well-known.

SEO MOVES YOU AHEAD OF YOUR COMPETITORS

Your business will thrive if you invest in Search Engine Optimization. Why? Because your brand or business will be on the mind of users the moment, they go online in search of what you offer. Imagine two companies in the same industry selling related merchandise at similar prices. One invests in search engine optimization as a marketing strategy, and the other depends on traditional marketing strategies alone. Which business do you think will generate more from local searchers? Which company do you think will make more progress and become successful? It will be the one that invests in SEO that will be more successful because we are in the digital age, everything we do revolve around the internet. For example, you are in a new environment, and you need to order pizza. Do you go around asking for where to get pizza? No. All you need to do is take your phone and search for the keyword “Order Pizza”, and it will show you the list of places you can get pizza then you click on the one that is at the top. Voila! Your pizza is at your doorstep. Investing in quality SEO as helped that pizza shop to move ahead of another pizza shop in that area that doesn’t know about SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is Relatively Cheap

 Most of you will be thinking that with the abundant advantages Search Engine Optimization offers, that it will cost a fortune. Yes, it costs money. Nothing good comes for free, but it is relatively cheap and affordable.

CONCLUSION

We are no longer in the 90’s; we are now in a digital age and the internet as made so many things easy. It has provided us with many online marketing strategies to explore. Search Engine Optimization is one of them, make use of it to your advantage. If you are not number one, you are not getting clicks, and basically, you are losing customers.

Top 5 SEO Hacks for Start-Ups

Business startups often face the challenge of standing tall amid big companies and stiff competition. However, in this age of internet and online marketing, it’s possible to improve your growth prospects faster. Your marketing strategy should start with working on your search engine optimization (SEO) to boost your online presence. This article focuses on SEO hacks for your startup business.

Top SEO Hacks to Grow Your Startup Business

seo best practices 2019

There are various strategies you can employ to increase the visibility of your young company. Local search engine optimization and other SEO techniques help to direct traffic to your business. These strategies help in getting your business to rank well in Google search engine results pages (SERPs). As a result, if you optimize well, a person searching online for similar products as yours will easily find you.

Here are 5 SEO tips to help you out:

1. Local Search Engine Optimization

If you don’t have a website yet, local SEO is your best tool to build a good client base. Local SEO works by showing google search results related to an area or locality. It’s an “area-based” search, for example, if someone searches for a service in a city, town, or region, your company will appear. Similarly, people searching for a service/ product “near me” will find your business if it’s located around that area.

How do you perform local SEO? To stand out in local google ranking, you should indicate your business name, physical address, and telephone number. The requirement above is commonly known as NAP (name, address, and phone). This information is necessary to guide your potential customers about your location if they want to visit or call you. If you need help on how to go about it, you can talk to an SEO expert.

2. Content is King

If you have a website, provide useful content for people visiting your site. When potential customers find valuable information that will help solve their problems, they’ll trust your site. Therefore, aim at building superior content that provide real solutions. Google crawlers will index your site if it has helpful information which will eventually boost your ranking in google search.

You should regularly update your content to match any changes in products or service description.

Use page titles and subheadings to divide your content into sections that are visually appealing and easy to read. If your potential clients spend more time on your site, you may convert them to customers. Add call to action to increase conversion rates.

3. Search Engine Optimization with Keywords

The keywords or key phrases you use in your website content should relate to your products/ services. People search for particular keywords or phrases on the internet. If the keyword they enter to search matches you with your services, Google will direct them to your site.

You can find keywords suitable for your business using KWFinder or keyword tool. However, you should avoid keyword stuffing your content as this may make google to mark your site as spam.

4. Social Media Network

No doubt, social media is one of the best tools to build an extensive network and reach many people fast. If you continuously post valuable content on your social media platforms, you’ll increase the sharability. When your social media users widely share your content, it contributes to your online visibility. YouTube and Google+ are particularly important in building your network.

5. Smart Web Design

It would be best if you focused on building a website design that’s easy to navigate with a good layout. Add internal links to make it easy for visitors to move from one section to another. Your website should be compatible with all browsers and able to load faster. An unresponsive website will not rank well with search engines.

In conclusion, you should remember that search engine optimization is a continuous process. Maintaining up to date SEO marketing techniques give business startups a competitive advantage.

Is SEO becoming expensive for businesses?

Search engine optimization is becoming more and more expensive day by day. The reason is that the experts in the field are having to spend lots of money on tools and links which is nowadays costly to build. Gone are the days when you could write to a blogger and get a link for free or at a very cheap price. Everyone wants to make money when it comes to search engines.

There is also the aspect of Google algorithm which changes very frequently. As a consequence, techniques that was working formerly stop ranking your site at some moment in time and you are just out of business pretty quickly. The best strategy looks like SEO experts need to be very honest with Google when it comes to optimizing a site. The need not use tricks that have just temporary effects.

We will be updating our SEO hacks almost every few months that will help responsible SEO companies to do the right job for their clients. We will be coming with more valuable information soon to help you be on top of Google rankings. Keep tuned with our blog for more news.