Running a small business takes a lot of coordinating, facilitating, and a strategic approach to cover as much ground as possible, gain popularity, and ultimately win over an ever-increasing clientele base. This juggling act, even from this initial bird’s-eye view, already seems daunting enough. Breaking it down further, however, to the mere online approach of a business reveals the need to achieve attention-getting on an entirely separate platform by entirely different means. All this is done in an effort to achieve maximum search engine optimization (SEO), your ability to come up in search query returns as relevant to one’s search. As reaching optimal optimization occurs through the implementation of many different practices, functions, and consideration, there are some that are most pertinent in SEO success. Let’s explore some now.
Website
Having a website is absolutely pertinent to having your brand found online at all. There is a saying, originally conveyed perfectly by the great Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100% of the shots you do not take”. Regarding e-commerce and your potential for acquiring an online customer base, to not have a website through which to publicize your business online is to fail in taking the most important shot and, in turn, missing a great business opportunity. With only 71% of small businesses reporting to have a business website, a relatively small portion considering the growth of e-commerce, almost 30% of small businesses are missing potential to gain online attention (Small Business). The general need for a website or online attention wouldn’t be so crucial if internet usage wasn’t as high, but with usage at 92% of U.S. adults, this audience is one that cannot go ignored (Search Engine Watch).
Your business website is the hub for all of your brand’s online activity. From it, all other factors for reaching ideal SEO will be directed. A website should house links to all other walks of a brand’s online presence so as to tie everything together. In doing this, it also secures potential for traffic to your website from any of the other features that will be discussed in the following topics. To optimize your visibility in search engine returns, centralizing all of your business, as opposed to having all parts of your online strategy as islands apart from one another, is key, and a website it the way to go.
Keywords and URL’s
When somebody conducts a search online for services or goods related to those that your brand offers, they can go about it in a couple ways. One way this could be done is by using keywords within a search engine. They will pull up Google, Bing, or the search engine of their choice and write in some specific words that are relevant to their need. These words are deemed as keywords, and they are the words your potential buyers will use to suggest their needs in a search bar. It is vital, as a business owner with an e-commerce strategy, to do all you can to best understand your market, so as to pick the words that might bear most significance to them as they search and, ultimately, lead them right to you.
A second way that one might find your website is by means of its URL. Although, unlike in the case of a search query, this will bring you right to a website instead of a list of sites relevant to a keyword, as a brand, you want to make sure that the URL to your website it visitor friendly and not a mess of characters. Keep URLs simplified, not on-running, and integrated with those keywords we talked about, and people will have no issues finding you through your designated URL (LinchPinSEO). Through proper keyword pinpointing and usage to find you amidst a relevant search and user-friendly URLs to bring people straight to your brand, you are covered on all types of web perusers.
PPC Advertising and Geomarketing
While the previous points of keywords and URLs gear towards the ways a web user may look up and find your business or topics related to it, there are some methods that deal primarily in outreach to potential buyers. With PPC advertising, you are able to bid on advertising space where your brand can be seen along side relevant search returns. This is a great feature, worthy of implementation, as it enables your business to pay for for visibility search rankings. If your business does not have the clout or following, PPC gives you the opportunity to show up by means other than just initial popularity, increasing your potential for growth.
If you do not have the means to fund a PPC advertising campaign, but happen to have physical business locations, another great option in achieving more attention for your business is to utilize geomarketing tactics. By using these, you can use beacons, geofencing, and other location-oriented technologies to see when people with interest in your industry happen to come through your area. Once honed in on individuals within proximity, timely emails or acknowledgements can be directed to these people that will make them aware of your business and give them incentives, through promotions or otherwise, to come check out your company or buy from it through other means. Through the practices of PPC advertising and geomarketing, you are able to reach out to customers whose needs your brand can fulfill and act as a flare to gain their attention and search engine optimization, and thus their business.
Social Media and Blogs
Buying and selling is not the only thing that is taking the digital realm by storm these days. Two of the most popular occupiers of our time spent online today are social media and reading written content such as blogs. Social media is a great means to improve your SEO for multiple reasons. First of all, these platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc), have become increasingly popular, and for that reason, to utilize social media means people have a new way of finding your brand. Second, with sharing capabilities, people can quickly share your brand for more and more eyes and search engines to see. Lastly, and very importantly, social media sites are effective assets in link-building, with directly works in allowing your brand to come up in search rankings in relation to its social media pages. Social media makes it hard to not get traffic or attention in this day in age. Take advantage of it!
Blogs, similarly are a great platform that is digital but geared heavily to the ‘personal’. By incorporating blogs into your online business strategy, you give a not-so-robotic touch to your brand, lend it a personal touch, and gain more appeal overall. Furthermore, blogs have a similar link building capability to social media where people can find your website through your blog, or even your blog through your website, and open up all channels of connectivity between all of your online platforms. Also, since blogs are heavily lined with information regarding your industry, keyword rich text from your blogs will direct additional traffic to your website. Utilizing social media and blogs, you give a new, human element to your online business strategy to bring attention to you in search rankings.
Analytics
The effort to optimize your brand’s search engine optimization is nothing if you are unable to measure the results of all of your hard work and coordination. To have a method of gathering analytics is one backend function that one can not go without. An analytics feature that can collect data on the performance of all walks of your online presence, such as the reach of your PPC advertisement, the visits of your website, and much more, keeping you in the know regarding your progress and maintaining your position of control to adjust in ways that will best benefit your brand.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, search engine optimization is crucial in the success of your business. Online, finding a brand within the sea of information that is the internet, or even a single search engine, bears great difficulty. Creating a plan in order to cover the most ground and gain the most attention will benefit your business and equip it to compete to the best of its abilities. To adhere these features to you online business strategy and gain more business in general, contact Rave Retailer today and get your SEO on the next level.