5 Tips to Boost Your Business's SEO

Photo courtesy of Photospin

By Stefanie Neyland, Small Business Content Developer at BizLaunch.com

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short) has been a hot topic amongst marketing folk of late. Google, the trailblazer of Web indexing, is perpetually changing its algorithms to determine which content should reach the top of its results page, and penalizes those who attempt to cheat the system. These constant changes to SEO practices have made the already confusing world of Web optimization even more of a challenge for businesses of all sizes—but it’s small businesses that have the real challenge due to their limited resources.

That being said, there are some basic tried-and-tested methods to keep your SEO ticking along. Here are a few pointers on how you can stay on Google’s good side and help more people find your business through search.

 

1. SEO is all about content

Proper SEO—or ‘white-hat SEO’—is all about creating high-quality content instead of trying to cheat Google’s system. To win at SEO these days, focus on producing useful, interesting, topical and insightful subject matter that’s relevant and of interest to your target audience. The idea is use your content as a marketing tool (content marketing) to attract new customers and encourage them to share your information with their network.

 

2. Blog, blog, blog

If you’re going to be trying your hand at content marketing, you’re going to need a place to house all that material. Adding a blog to your website will not only make it much more dynamic, but it’ll also give you a way to regularly add and share new information. Google works on the assumption that consumers typically search for new content on any given topic, and so it ranks regularly updated sites above those that are inactive. Therefore, regularly posting to a blog can help your business rank higher in search results.

 

3. Don’t focus on keywords

Stuffing a web page with keywords isn’t going to make Google rank you higher, so don’t do it. Instead, write copy that appeals to your audience, and use keywords where they make sense—sparingly.

 

4. Claim your Google Places page

Claiming a Google Places page for your business is a foolproof way to give your SEO a boost. Simply having a page can help your business show up in local search results, which is especially valuable to businesses who cater to local customers. Make your page stand out from the crowd by adding photos, videos and promotional discounts to demonstrate why your customers should choose you over your competition.

 

5. Pay close attention to analytics

If you see a dip down in traffic to your site, consider what you’ve done recently. If you’ve tweaked your keywords or started writing guest posts on a less-than-reputable blog, this might be Google’s way of telling you to back off. On the other hand, if certain posts you write send more traffic your way, write more like them.