When you’re a small business trying to make the most of a small marketing budget, one of the key pillars of your online marketing strategy has to be search engine optimisation (SEO).
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There are thousands of articles on SEO. Type ‘how to do SEO’ into Google and with 0.32 seconds you have over 370 million results. It can be difficult to filter all of the available advice to create a sound SEO strategy, but a couple of key principles will always hold true.
To avoid falling into the trap of doing SEO badly, here are some simple tips for easily optimising your site for search engines.
Internal links
Internal links allow Google to naturally crawl the pages of your site without having to refer to your sitemap. To allow for this, make sure all of the content on your site is linked by at least one link. This has the added advantage of allowing users to navigate the site easily, as well as establishing information hierarchy for the website.
Ask content creators to link back
Ask your suppliers, clients and service providers to write about you on their websites and link back to your site. This can be in the form of reviews, testimonials or blog posts. External links are important for SEO because as far as a search engine is concerned, these are considered an endorsement of your site, increasing your ranking power and making your site more visible.
Create content
Create a blog for your website. Consistently updating your content enables your site to attract natural links. Google will also crawl your website more often if it knows you have fresh content.
Company directory submissions
Directory listings can play a role in an SEO and marketing strategy. Directory pages tend to rank well for important search terms and being listed in these directories helps your site gain additional exposure in results pages.
Submit your company profile and website to all major directories that are relevant to your field to boost your rankings. Some local service businesses that have listed on Oneflare have seen a boost of 25 to 30 per cent in their search rankings. Another important factor in being found online is to create a Google local profile for your business. Building up as many links as possible is the key to being found online so use every resource at your disposal.
Resource page
A resource page on your site can be invaluable, not just for SEO, but also for your customers. Depending on your niche, you could write a glossary of terms, DIY guides, ‘how-to’ guides or tutorials. These resources will usually attract a lot of links from people looking for information on this content.
This is by no means an exhaustive list but it provides you with a starting point for your SEO strategy which should be a key tenet of your digital marketing plan. When you consider that 60 per cent of clicks go to the first result on Google, it’s unarguable you can’t afford to be without an SEO strategy.
Adam Dong is co-founder and CTO of Oneflare.com.au, the local business services marketplace that connects Australians with 35,000 businesses across Australia.