While social media is certainly important, if you want to take your business to the next level, you must also start paying attention to SEO. Search Engine Optimization is no longer a “nice-to-have”; it’s a necessity.
And contrary to popular belief, SEO is not some dark art only understood by a select few. Nor is it something that you can just “wing” like you can with social media. In fact, with a little bit of research and planning, SEO can be easy peasy!
Here are a few tips to get you started…
SEO Marketing Step #1: Perform Keyword Research
The first step in any solid SEO marketing plan is keyword research. Keyword research is essential because it allows you to identify the phrases and words people use to find businesses like yours online.
Once you know what keywords to target, you can optimize your website and content around those keywords so that your business shows up in search results when people search for what you offer.
You can use several different methods and tools to perform keyword research, but one of the simplest (and most effective) is to use Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner tool.
This tool is designed for businesses that want to run Google Ads, but it can also be used for keyword research. All you need to do is enter a seed keyword—a broad term related to your business—and the Keyword Planner will generate a list of related keywords along with data on each keyword’s monthly search volume and competition level.
Once you have your list of keywords, it’s time to move on to step two…
SEO Marketing Step #2: Optimize Your Website for SEO
Now that you know which keywords to target, it’s time optimize your website so that Google (and other search engines) know what your website is about and can rank it accordingly in search engine results pages.
There are several different things you can do to optimize your website for SEO, including:
- Adding titles and descriptions to each page of your website
- Using relevant keywords throughout your website’s copy
- Optimizing your website’s images by adding ALT text
- Creating an XML sitemap
- Adding social sharing buttons to each blog post or web page
- Submitting your website to directories
- Building backlinks from high-quality websites
Doing all these things may seem like a lot of work, but trust me—it’ll be worth it when your website starts ranking higher in SERPs and getting more traffic.