“But they still can’t find my content online!!” Harper cried out in frustration.
He spent a little over 30 minutes venting to Paula, his fiancé, who worked in the content marketing industry. “I make my content interesting. I spend hours trying to write blogs, but I’m having no luck attracting customers and conversions!” was the gist of his complaints.
Paula listened to all his issues with patience, and before Harper finished, she already knew what to suggest.
“What’s your current SEO strategy?” she asked. The question was left to float in the air while the truth slowly descended on both of them. Harper had never touched SEO in his life.
If you, like Harper, are wondering why you’re unable to get more traffic organically, consider the truth as having descended upon you. SEO. Yep, that’s what you’re missing, my friend.
The thing is, If you aren’t already using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies, it’s about time you start. SEO has countless opportunities for the average business owner, and if you aren’t making it a part of your content creation process, you’re going to have similar complaints like Harper.
Therefore in this article, we’ll guide you through:
- What is SEO or Search Engine Optimization?
- Types of SEO
- 5 Key Benefits of SEO for your business
- Advantages of local SEO
- 11 Effective SEO strategies to boost your business in 2022
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Imagine you’ve created a service page for your website, and now you want organic traffic on it. How will you do it? Through SEO.
SEO refers to optimizing a website’s content, layout, and structure to become Google’s top choice when consumers search for your services.
Types of SEO
On-page SEO
A website’s on-page optimization includes everything your readers will see. Quality, informative content is the cornerstone of effective SEO. It needs to be more than just informative.
It needs to solve problems that no other pages are solving (or at least solve those problems better). Factors such as keywords, image optimization, and more fall in the domain of On-page SEO. On-page SEO benefits for a business includes ranking higher in SERPs, advanced crawl rate, improved local search, and boosting page value.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is all about Link Building. It’s about contributing guest posts and blogs on other websites to get a link back from them to your website. Linking to your site helps you get visitors, and it shows Google that your content is valued and that your site is authoritative.
Linking to authoritative sites can have a tremendous effect on ranking your site. While it’s hard to measure the impact of a single link, getting a good one can boost your rankings substantially.
Using social media for your SEO is another off-page signal that can significantly impact your SEO ranking. When people talk about your content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social networks, search engines interpret that as a sign it’s worth talking about and help others find it. Therefore, an article that’s popular on social media will also drive you a lot of traffic and benefit your SEO as well.
Off-page SEO benefits for a business includes higher search engine ranking, authority building, and more website traffic.
Technical SEO
In technical SEO, on-page factors do not matter as much as the optimization that goes behind the scenes. For example, your website’s responsiveness is a significant SEO factor and can only be improved through technical SEO. Likewise, slow-loading pages lose visitors, and Google penalizes your website if it loads too slow.
Aside from optimizing images, using a secure HTTPS connection, caching information to speed up website loading times, and uploading detailed sitemaps, other technical factors can improve SEO for your business.
Local SEO
Even though many companies only operate online, thousands of companies still need customers in physical locations. You won’t make money if customers don’t come through your door.
The steps you need to think about for local SEO are different from those in a more traditional campaign. For example, make sure you’ve claimed your Google My Business page (GMB). A GMB page ensures that your name, address, phone number, hours of operation, reviews, and other helpful information appear prominently on Google Maps and search results.
Moreover local SEO benefits for a business includes business growth locally, gain more foot traffic, get links from neighbouring businesses, and reduced advertisement costs.
| Here’s a mindblowing fact; In 2020, 93% of consumers used online searches to find a local business |
SEO Benefits for Your Business
A key perk of using SEO is that it gets your website and content up to standard and makes it easier for search engines to interact with. Here are eight mind-blowing SEO benefits your business can enjoy.
1. Improved User Experience
The SEO process improves your website and increases its user experience. This includes making relevant content accessible to your audience and inserting images and videos to make the content more intriguing.
Additionally, the web pages are much easier to navigate, with mobile optimization achieved faster. The end result is that visitors to your site stay longer and give you better brand engagement.
2. Increased Leads
Inbound marketing is the most effective source of leads among businesses. Inbound marketing strategies try to target customers by engaging with them through different mediums such as SEO, Content marketing, referrals, etc. By offering things your customers will already be interested in, SEO helps to bring prospects to your site.
Effective SEO can significantly result in increased leads and more business with lesser costs than other advertising methods.
3. Higher Close Rates
One of the best SEO benefits for a business is that it accelerates the sales process.. Statistics show an average of 14.6% close rate is achieved from SEO leads. For better understanding, SEO leads are customers who researched special requirements and located your services as a solution to their needs.
The earlier mentioned statistic shows that SEO helps your business seal that digital deal faster and get customers that will patronize your business with increased frequency.
4. Builds Brand Credibility
Digital confidence in a brand is sometimes tied to your ranking on google. For instance, If the user has to scroll to the bottom of the page to find your business, there’s very little chance of them trusting the product or information you provide.
On the other hand, ranking high on web searches in search results make your customers think your business is trustworthy. It suggests that you have something to offer better than the competition and encourages the user to find out what that is.
5. Improved Visibility
If your site has a good ranking on any search engine, it becomes easier for customers to find and patronize you. Maintain this rank consistently enough, and you can firmly place yourself as the go-to brand for new visitors with issues and needs.
Increasing your familiarity enhances your industry reputation and boosts your conversion rates.
6. Better Cost Management
SEO is the foundation of successful digital marketing. It can help you optimize cost management and save resources. Once you can efficiently incorporate it into your marketing strategy, you can develop a cost-effective system that works for your business.
As a plus, the essential requirements for ranking high referrals and social media posts are much less expensive than their marketing counterparts.
7. Client Behavior Analysis
By effectively applying SEO to your content creation, you can determine how the general public reacts to what you put out. This will help you make occasional adjustments to match their needs at different times.
Furthermore, you get a chance to study what customers are interested in and use that information to build a compelling brand strategy.
8. Improved Website Optimization
Effective SEO can make your website search optimized for mobile devices. It can also improve the user experience on your website. Simply put, creating relevant content, including adding backlinks and improving site responsiveness, enhances the user’s experience and encourages them to return.
9. Local Seo For Small Businesses
One of the excellent SEO strategy benefits for a business is gaining recognition, increasing leads, sales, and more. However, it’s easy for local businesses to become lost in the shadow of more prominent companies while trying to promote their products and services.
This is why Local SEO has been set up. Local SEO targets a smaller audience within the locality of the small business.
Below we will discuss five benefits of local SEO to smaller businesses.
5 Key Benefits Of Local Seo To Smaller Businesses
Local SEO is a unique type of SEO that recently gained popularity. It targets the public in your locality or area. As a strategy that is easy to optimize and start using, small businesses have harnessed the power of local Seo for a chance to compete with much bigger rivals.
But that’s just a taste of what local SEO has to offer. You also get:
1. More Traffic
Local SEO enhances your website traffic. When you focus on your locality, you automatically encourage customers in your vicinity to visit your website. Targeting local people will direct local traffic to your site and guarantee that you build a solid customer base.
2. Higher Conversion Rate
Did you know that 28% of local searches result in successful sales? This points to the fact that Local SEO is instrumental to that positive domino effect. As a result, users will be encouraged to visit your physical store.
3. Reduced Advertisement Costs
Optimizing your SEO saves you a lot of money. Most local stores invest in banners and flyers for advertising. Unfortunately, that can only take your business so far and is majorly only effective for product or service promotions.
Local SEO, however, comes with an excellent alternative where you can create content that resonates with your users and lets them get to know your business on a personal level. As a result, you spend less on advertising because you already have a communication channel and customer interaction.
4. Mobile Optimization
Most users prefer the convenience of ordering, so it’s not surprising to see them make purchases through mobile devices. Thanks to local SEO, you can get your site optimized to make it easier for individuals that are more accustomed to mobile phone browsing.
By giving users a satisfactory experience, they are more likely to buy your product or engage with your services.
5. Easier To Solve Client Problems
Local SEO targets local customers. This makes it easier to get referrals and loyal customers. Because it is also in your location, you get access to feedback almost instantly and can address client issues personally.
Now that you know the value of SEO in general, you need to understand how to achieve effective SEO. Below are 11 SEO strategies to help you achieve effective SEO in 2022.
11 Effective Seo Strategies To Boost Your Business In 2022
The world of search engine optimization is expansive, and it’s easy to get lost while finding what works for you. To make things easier, here’s a list of strategies that are easy to implement and boost your business;
Use long-tail keywords
An excellent tool for finding long-tail keywords is Ubersuggest. The brainchild of an SEO expert, Neil Patel. Ubersuggest gives you access to keywords from users and competitors alike.
Surprisingly, 20% of all web traffic comes from long-tail keywords! Long-tail keywords are phrases that contain three or more specific words. An excellent example of a long-tail keyword can be “value of SEO for brands” instead of writing just ‘SEO.’
Long-tail keywords increase the chances of users reaching your website. If a user does a generic search for the word “SEO,” they will end up being swamped with results that offer very little information.
On the other hand, long-tail keywords reduce the stress of the search process. According to HubSpot, long-tail search is the preferred method for online users. Essentially, you’re assured that users are locating your content online by using long-tail keywords.
Use Target Keywords Properly
Including a keyword in your work is one thing,g but the content becomes hard to read if it doesn’t appear naturally. The critical thing to note is to make sure the message to your customer is not lost in trying to comply with the search algorithm.
Focus On User Experience (UX)
When creating your website and content, a primary focus should be on functional UX. It guarantees easy navigation for your users and a memorable experience.
Using headings, easy-to-read paragraphs, and mobile optimization can reduce your bounce rate and have better interactions on your website.
Improve Existing Content
Beyond creating new content for your users, you should consider improving those you’ve already published. That’s because further information on the topic turns up every day, and you can include this in the existing article.
Also, it saves you the stress of creating content from scratch.
You should also update your website to match SEO standards. This can be done by improving readability, adding keywords, and optimizing the interface for web and mobile use.
Improve Your Website Speed
A fast website speed is a key to your customer success. It guarantees that visitors to your site can get solutions to their problems quicker. You can improve your website speed by:
- Cutting your code, e.g., (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) to reduce the back-end computations.
- Optimizing images to reduce the loading time for visuals.
- Reducing redirections to cut down on waiting time for users.
Simplify Pages
People’s attention spans are continually shrinking, and if what you offer is hard to find or read, you won’t do your brand any favors. To ensure that each page on your website or app is easy to understand by the users; you can use any of the following:
- Adjust the designs on each page to the essentials to make it more functional.
- Use buttons like ‘Read More,’ ‘About Us,’ or ‘Contact Us’ so as not to guide users around your website.
- Avoid too many ads or pop-up notifications on the website.
You can do these by making use of a Website Builder. Website builders provide you with a template that guides you on creating a website that lets users know what you’re offering and what they stand to gain.
Make Use Of Metrics
Using your metrics will help you learn how well users engage with your website. Some of the metrics you can use are:
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave your website immediately after arriving. If the figure is high, there’s definitely a problem with your content. Even though figuring out the source might be challenging, this will help you determine what is causing the pain.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Ranking:
SEO ranking how much of your traffic comes through various search terms. It can help you study and take note of the keywords that are working for your brand. This way, you can make adjustments by including or removing keywords.
Make Your Site Searchable
When visiting your site, the user already has a rough idea of what they’re looking for. Having a search bar on the landing page, for example, will enable users to get what they want and interact with your platform a lot easier.
Google Custom Search is free and easy to accomplish this goal. It lets you include a search engine on your site and assists users in making their minds up and getting what they want.
An additional benefit of a search bar is that it encourages customers to look for products and services they hadn’t previously considered.
Use Functional Backlinks
The backlinks to your website play an essential role in SEO. You can increase your rank by including links to content on websites that rank higher than yours. You should, however, only link to relevant sites that offer similar services as yours.
Creating Valuable Content
Your content is a crucial aspect of your website that Search engines look out for. There are several strategies to follow when creating valuable content.
Target Your Audience’s Needs
Craft content by keeping your audience’s challenges at the forefront. Consider which valuable insights you can provide to solve such challenges. These solutions should steer your content creation and make it valid for your customers.
Use Authentic Stories
Users want honest and practical content. When your examples are realistic and relatable, it gives them the confidence that what you’re providing is valid.
Run Trials On Your Content
You need to monitor the content that drives traffic and engagement for your brand. Using emails, social media, and other digital channels, you can access its effectiveness. You can also create surveys asking users the kind of content they’d like to see often.
Conclusion
Whether running an enterprise or a brand, search engine optimization is crucial to its success and it’s important to keep in mind SEO benefits for a business. The information we’ve provided in this article will go a long way to guarantee that the entire process goes smoothly.
That being said, practical application is the best way to determine how SEO optimization has most improved your brand’s business prospects. However, many people tend to apply SEO themselves but don’t get anywhere.
It’s best to hire an expert who knows SEO as well as you know your business. Like Harper, you should relax and let our experts guide you through the whole strategy that is guaranteed to work. All it takes is a 10-minute discovery call to discuss your pain points. We will do a free audit and tell you all you need to improve your business ranking through organic search.