I’ve talked with a lot of small business owners that know they need to work on their SEO. However, in order to pay for SEO services, they need more business. And in order to get more business, they often need to improve their SEO. Herein lies the problem. If this sounds familiar to you, here are a few things you can to do improve your SEO without any money or coding knowledge.
Considering you’re already reading this post, you likely know the importance of SEO. If not, the proof is in the data. According to Bullet Point Marketing, the top link in search results gets 33% of the clicks. The second and third get approximately 18% and 12% of clicks, respectively. Then, less than 10% of people click the “Next” button at the bottom of the Google page. All the more reason to prioritize improving your search rankings.
1. Create a profile on Google+ for your business.
No matter your impression of Google+, it’s not hard to understand why this builds trust with Google. Creating a Google+ profile improves rankings for localized keywords.
Once you’ve created your profile, ask your customers to leave you some reviews. Not only will positive reviews build your credibility with new potential customers, Google sees these positive reviews and improves your rankings in its local listings.
Remember not to let this stagnate. It’s important to post new and engaging content to Google+ on a regular basis. Doing so also improves rankings and click-through-rate.
2. Diversify your traffic sources.
Google sees high traffic as a factor of credibilityKeep in mind that not all traffic comes from Google. In fact, your highest quality traffic could actually come from somewhere else entirely. Your potential visitors are using lots of tools to find your services, such as Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, YouTube, etc. Therefore, if you put all of your focus on improving your Google rankings, you’re missing opportunities for more organic traffic. Google likes seeing that lots of sites (especially large, credible ones) send traffic to your website.
Do you host local events? If so, post those to social media and watch your traffic grow. Also, encourage any organizations affiliated or sponsoring the event to link to your website when talking about your event.
3. Find the right keywords.
Optimize for keywords that are closer to your niche and have fewer competitors. I once worked with a massage therapist in St. Louis, and explained keywords to her like this. You’re much more likely to achieve a high ranking for “aromatheraphy massage St. Louis” rather than “massage St. Louis” or “massage”. This is because there’s less competition for “aromatheraphy massage St. Louis” than the less-specific other terms. This is closer to her niche and will likely bring her higher quality traffic anyway. Google Trends and Keyword Planner are free and can help you research the right terms for your business.
4. Write great content.
If you create great content, people will naturally want to read it and share it. Write about what you know, and then share it to social media.
Content helps check a few boxes for Google. First, Google likes when your site has new content for it to crawl. Second, creating and sharing content brings more traffic to your site, also showing Google that people find your content relevant.
5. Delete duplicate content.
When there are two or more pieces of the same content on the internet, search engines have a hard time knowing which is more relevant for a certain search query. This makes them less likely to prioritize your content.
There are free tools to find duplicate content on your website. I have used a tool called Siteliner in the past to find duplicate content and broken links on websites.
6. Create or update your listing on Google Maps.
You may have noticed that when you use Google to search for a service, many times it will also offer up results from Google Maps that are in close proximity to where you are located. If your business is not listed on Google Maps, you are missing out on potential click-throughs to your site.
If your business is listed, but people still aren’t finding you, go to Google My Business and complete the tasks presented. Doing so will help your businesses local ranking on Google, as well as raising your profile in Search and Maps.
Ultimately, ensure your business is listed, that you’ve “claimed” it, and that the business name, phone and address posted are consistent with other sites where you’re listed, such as Yelp, Facebook, Dexknows, YP, TripAdvisor and Yellowbook.
Much of the information listed in this task was taken directly from Google’s article on this very topic.
These things take time!
Expect to spend 6 months or so on this effort before you see a real gain in your SEO. Depending on your industry, improvements may come sooner than 6 months, or they may take longer. Because of this, you will need a way to track your progress over the course of months or years. Different things work for different types of businesses, so it’s important to see if the effort you’re putting forward is making a difference. Google has a few free tools to help you track your progress. Google Analytics and Google Search Console both show your site’s SEO performance over time, as well as other data such as traffic sources, referral links and search queries that bring up your site in search results.
I hope these tips help you improve your rankings. If you need more technical assistance beyond what these tips can provide, I can help you. Please send me an email from my contact page and we can discuss from there.
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