IF YOU ASK most business owners what the best way to generate website traffic is they will pretty much always talk about SEO. There are plenty of other channels available, such as referrals and social media, but nothing really compares to search engines. The problem is that not only are business owners competing against every other business owner out there for certain keywords that relate to their industry, but they also generally don’t have the resources they need to develop and deliver content and an experience that resonates with both current and prospective consumers.
Fortunately there are ways to optimize your website that will provide some great opportunities to generate website traffic and boost your conversions.
Here are some easy search engine optimization (SEO) tips to help get your website listing on search engines:
Keyword research is essential for on page optimization. Chances are you are naturally including keywords without realizing it simply by providing valuable content on a topic. However, there are a variety of tools and techniques for finding related keywords relevant to your page that you may not have considered. The Google Adwords Keyword Tool and semrush.com both offer great tools that allow you to find keywords related to your topic and even spy on your competition to see what words and phrases they are targeting to bring traffic to their sites.
Utilize keywords throughout your page. Once you have targeted a couple of valuable, relevant keywords, it is important to place them where they will have the most impact for humans and search engine crawlers indexing your content. Try to include them in the following places:
- Title
- Headings and subheadings
- Introductory sentence
- Concluding paragraph
- Anchor text (text you hyperlink to other related pages on your site)
- Title tags and meta descriptions
Be careful not to engage in keyword stuffing, which is the act of filling your content with so many keywords that it becomes difficult to read. Not only will this irritate your page readers, it will also get you penalized by Google. A couple of strategically placed keywords will do the trick.
Optimize your images. Whenever you upload a photo to your media library, be sure to include keywords in the file name and fill out the alternate text field with a brief, keyword rich description of the photo.
Reference others with links. When you mention another site or article in your page, include a link to the information you are referencing. Not only is it good etiquette, but you may also get lucky and receive a link back. Quality links are a valuable commodity for any site looking to rank higher in search engine results pages.
Use social media to broaden the reach of your blog posts. As a small business, you may be utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or other social media sites to create connections with potential and current customers. Why not promote your page content on these sites for even more web exposure?