Business owners are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the internet and using search engine optimisation (SEO) to increase revenue for their business. Climbing to the first page of Google’s search engine is something almost every business owner should want since it can exponentially increase revenue.
Have you ever been frustrated with your competitors showing up higher on search? Ever wondered what your business can do to get more customers? If so then, make sure to keep reading this article since it will cover all you need to know about SEO. We’ll also cover SEO emerging trends in 2021 and how local and online businesses can improve their rankings on Google.
SEO: What It Is and Why You Should Care
Search engine optimisation is the process of improving your online presence in a manner that can grant more exposure, increased user traffic and better-qualified clients. To help you understand more about this topic and improve your business’s SEO, we have compiled some insights from our web experts.
SEO for Online Businesses vs SEO for Offline Businesses
When people with offline businesses hear about SEO, they might immediately think, “why do I even need to worry about my presence on search engines?” Although this train of thought may seem logical, those with local businesses such as dentists, mechanics and so on can benefit significantly from some basic knowledge of SEO.
However, you will not be using the same strategies as those with online businesses if your business depends on local customers. An online e-commerce business will have a much different focus and strategy than a dentist looking for customers within a 30-mile radius. For example, if you are a construction company, you’ll want to make a separate page on your website for Sydney kitchen remodelling, Sydney bathroom remodelling, Sydney roofing repair, etc.
SEO: More Than Just Google
If you want to get into SEO, you don’t need to focus on Google. Amazon, Reddit, Yahoo, YouTube, Bing and others all have standards for SEO and require different strategies. Keep in mind that you may need to optimise your business on multiple platforms.
Top4 SEO Trends to Consider
SEO is constantly changing. Our web experts are on the pulse to see what is fact or fiction. Read on for evergreen advice that local business owners like you can implement today.
1. More Views for More Prominent Sites
One thing that continues to remain constant with Google is that they give preference to sites with more rapport. Typically, this is built with time, building backlinks and the amount of content that you have. Google is continuing to reward the biggest sites on the internet (in terms of age, content and backlinks). Conversely, it’s often leaving smaller sites with much better content on page two or worse. To succeed in SEO, you need to be excelling in all of these areas and doing it with solid consistency.
2. Fast Websites Score More Points from Google
Recently, Google started giving preference to sites that load faster. There has been a lot of attention to Google’s “Page experience” update and the so-called Core Web Vitals. In other words, Google wants to serve people pages with good usability, that load fast and look great on mobile. When you make life easy for Google, they make life easy for you. Google wants to recommend fast websites to its users. So make your website fast.
3. Search Intentions
Google is also starting to improve on determining what the searcher’s intention is and what kind of content will best answer their questions. The best way to understand how to rank for a keyword is to search it in Google and take note of what types of content are coming up. Are they sales pages? In-depth guides? Best-of lists? You’ll want to make sure you understand the search intent of the keywords you’re trying to rank for and model your content after what’s ranking in Google.
4. Localisation is Improving
Google usually has access to your exact location. Accordingly, they are getting better at giving search results that are most relevant for your area. If you search just “Indian restaurant” you won’t get the best Indian restaurants in the country. You’ll likely get the best Indian restaurants in your city. That brings a big opportunity for local businesses to really optimise their website by including their location in the title tags and content of the site.
Imagine that you have an Indian restaurant in South Yarra. Put tags such as “Indian restaurant South Yarra”, “best Indian restaurant in South Yarra” and so on, on various locations in your site such as the title tags and the blogs.
Boost Local SEO for Online Business
When building an online business, such as an e-commerce site or affiliate site, there is a recipe for success that experts would advise you to follow. For starters, do a thorough competitor research. This will help you understand which pages of your competitors are bringing them the most search traffic and which pages of your competitors are attracting links from other websites in your industry.
Furthermore, our web experts advise you to take things even further and to do an SEO site audit. There are plenty of online tools which will scan your website for hundreds of common SEO issues and will give you actionable recommendations in regards to fixing them.
The process of putting keywords to use on your website is typically done through blogs. Investing in blog content is huge. There are thousands of keywords apart from what you actually sell that can help you attract your target customer. And blog content can not only help you rank for these keywords but also convey your expertise and authority, pushing your visitors down the sales funnel.
Finally, our web experts remind us of the importance of backlinks. Google’s algorithm is founded on the concept of backlinks. It’s no surprise that the websites with the most SEO exposure have an incredible amount of backlinks. Don’t ignore this foundational step to the SEO process.
In summary, experts advise online businesses to do keyword research, competitor research, invest in regular blog content, improve site speed and generate backlinks.
Improving SEO As A Local Business
If your business is based offline, you should still focus on how you can improve your SEO. Step one is to create a website. Or, at the very least, create a Google My Business registration. You can’t compete in the race of SEO without a vehicle.
Add more content to your website. As a local business owner, there’s likely plenty of information about your business and its product/services that can’t be found on your website at the moment. Make sure to make all that information available online. And if you have any unique industry knowledge – launch a blog and share that knowledge with the world in the form of blog articles. The more content you put out online, the easier it would be for people to find you.
You should keep in mind what you want the user to do when they visit your site. You’ll want to tell your users to call you, fill out a contact form, take advantage of a promotion, etc. The traffic that you get from SEO will be worthless if the user doesn’t know what next step to take. You must explicitly tell users what to do.
Finally, once you have content in play, you will need to find ways to get more views. Your last step should be to partner with bloggers and other businesses in your industry in order to promote your website. It doesn’t matter how content-rich or good-looking your website is. If you don’t put time, money and effort to promote it, Google won’t know it deserves attention. So make sure that other websites in your industry are talking about you.
Essential Tools For SEO
After breaking down some of the most relevant information on SEO for online and offline business, as well as the growing trends, you might be wondering what tools you can use today for improving your SEO. Here are some SEO tools to check out.
- The HOTH: From on-page to off-page SEO, The HOTH does it all. Whether you need blogs, backlinks and much more, the HOTH has proven its effectiveness in this industry repeatedly.
How We Can Help
In summary, experts state that you should build a website, build content relevant for each of your services, set up a funnel for connecting your customers to your business and then partner with other blogs and businesses in a niche. SEO is frequently overcomplicated but following advice from our web experts listed above along with a bit of patience will bring powerful results.
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