It’s true. Getting onto the front page of Google for your particular keywords is a battle. Moreover, not one of those quick little skirmishes that are over in a few days, but a full out war that calls for consistent commitment of troops and evaluation of strategy.
It’s no wonder small business owners that have little time to commit to this battle, feel like they’ve lost the battle before it really even started. The good news is that, although algorithms are in a constant state of flux, there is a constant that can help any business of any size compete.
We will get into that in a little bit, but first a little bit about search engine optimization, or SEO as it’s known in the digital arena. SEO is the number one tactic in building an online presence and getting traffic to your site. The problem is that there is such a wide variety of conflicting information regarding the topic.
While some may be good advice, it is best to start from the beginning – your website. Implementing all the right ingredients within your website is a great (and necessary) place to start. A rock solid online presence begins with the basics, with which everyone has access.
What access you ask?
Well the folks at Google have been providing website owners with a wide variety of guides and tools on ensuring that businesses build their websites with all the things it needs to earn more website traffic and visibility. Pay attention to the fundamentals and you just might take down a giant!
So go straight to Google, the 4 Star Generals of online presence, to develop your website with a SEO strategy that will get you well on the way to winning many wars to come!
The strategies that Google sanctions via their Webmaster Guidelines can have your website accrue all the right strengths it will need to compete.
Here is a summary of the most important SEO factors in 2016:**
- Good site structure including easy to navigate pages
- Website loads quickly and is secure
- Website provides a good mobile responsive experience
- Unique content and meta data for each page
- Structured data (schema markup) to identify the type of website page
- Well written and original that is valuable to readers
- Verify your site with Google’s My Business (also called Google Plus or Google Local)
Google has an army of free tools for website owners to utilize in order to ascertain that their website is moving in the right direction and gaining the stamina it needs to be competitive online.
The essential Google toolkit includes:**
- Google Analytics
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Google My Business
- Google Page Speed Insights
- Google Mobile Friendly Test
- Google Structured Data Testing Tool
- Google Structured Data Markup Tool
** Thanks to WSI World for this articles inspiration and great list of tools in their article, “SEO Advice Straight From Google”, by Andre Savoie
Use these wisely and regularly to monitor, test and improve your website. Once the basics are all in place, develop an SEO action plan that will help you excel in the digital world. Incorporate things such as content creation, social media marketing, display and pay per click advertising into this plan. You’ll find that once you get all your soldiers in place, the digital battle is not so scary, after all!
If you would like help with your digital advertising campaign, get in touch. We are expert marketing consultants in Delaware.
MDoyle@FamousWSIResults.com | 302-407-0430 | www.FamousWSIResults.com