Being an entrepreneur with an online business is both challenging and rewarding. One of the biggest challenges online eCommerce store owners face is pulling traffic to their websites. It takes a lot of attention and patience. One way to achieve these is through search engine optimization (SEO). In this article, we will explore five SEO strategies that every entrepreneur should know and can benefit from implementing into their website.
What SEO Does for Your Website
SEO has many advantages, but its main job is to improve your website’s rank on search engines. When your website has a high ranking, it appears higher in search results for online users. Your goal, as an entrepreneur, is to have a website that outranks your competitors and others within the same industry. Several SEO strategies help accomplish this. Use them to help your website get noticed. The more your website appears in search engine results, the more organic traffic it attracts. Because most of this traffic is users seeking your products or services, the more visitors you get to your website, the more likely you’ll increase sales. It all starts with solid SEO strategies like the ones listed below.
SEO Strategy 1 – Research Your Keywords
Several online keyword tools can help you find the right keywords for your website. However, consider a more customer-focused approach rather than targeting specific words related to your industry. You’ll still reach your audience while building your online authority and credibility. For example, if your business is hardware, rather than opting for “tools” as a keyword, look at answering questions that users may input as they search, such as “what tools do I need for…” Create a list of questions and use them as topics for blog posts that will draw targeted traffic to your site.
SEO Strategy 2 – Quality Content Marketing
Your content strategy comes next and is built on the keywords you have researched and chosen to use. The best way to rank high on search results is with high quality content and this means creating original, non-plagiarized pages that focus on the same topic. Doing this helps you increase something called topical authority. When your website has a high topical authority, search engines have an easier time understanding your website and its purpose. When Google has a good grip on your website topic, you appear more in search results and that is what you want. Make sure the content is well-written and error-free.
SEO Strategy 3 – Include On-Page SEO
How a website is structured can cause challenges for search engines as they visit and crawl pages. Make sure you optimize each page for its keywords. The smartest way to do this is to create content that includes terms and phrases that relate to the keywords. Online tools can help you figure out what these terms and phrases are. Content written in this way becomes more topically relevant to the target keyword. Ultimately, this assists with page ranking, and you already know how important that is to attracting traffic to your site.
SEO Strategy 4 – Build Some Authority Links
At some point, outranking websites will not be possible with just keywords. You will encounter reputable and authoritative websites that will dominate your keyword list. But there is a way to still stand out from the crowd and use do-follow links. Do-follow links assist in passing authority from one website to another. If your backlinks are to high-ranking sites, your site will get pulled up in rankings. The same applies to links that go to low-ranking sites. These links will pull your site down in rank. Always use authority site links in your linking strategy.
SEO Strategy 5 – Outsourcing SEO Tasks
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you may sometimes wonder how you will run your business and keep up on your website. Make no mistake, SEO for your website is not a “set it and forget it” project. Plus, because some tasks require specific technical knowledge, it isn’t exactly DIY either. So, it may be far more cost-effective for you to outsource your SEO needs. Using SEO to generate traffic has a higher return on investment (ROI) than any other marketing program. By outsourcing this work, you can concentrate on running your business.
Final Thoughts
It takes a lot of dedication and effort to have a successful business. Today’s technology has afforded business entrepreneurs tools to reach larger audiences and the means to sell products and services outside of the immediate trade area. To do this effectively, small business owners need websites. However, an online presence is not enough to attract an extra income stream. To be successful online, your website must ensure that search engines visit it, rank it, and share it frequently. This is done through search engine optimization (SEO).
There are many tricks and tactics in SEO to bring a website the exposure it deserves. But sometimes, that is much more work to expect an entrepreneur to do while operating a business. Fortunately, there are SEO agencies out there that offer these services at affordable prices. With the impressive ROI on SEO, it is a smart investment to make, giving your business a competitive edge against others in your industry. SEO will increase the reach of your product or service by introducing it to new, potential customers in ways traditional advertising cannot. SEO is a great tool to increase business—
Marina Turea is a content manager at Digital Authority Partners, a content strategy firm based in Las Vegas.