SEO 101 with 5 basic tips to get you started on SEO
5 basic tips for Small Businesses to get started with SEO
Or SEO 101 for short….
If your small business in Colorado has a website, you’ve probably heard the term “SEO” more than once. You may have also been told by digital marketers that you need to “optimize” your SEO to get noticed online.
But what exactly is SEO, and why does it matter for your website and online visibility?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a set of strategies aimed at improving both the quantity and quality of traffic to your website. In simple terms, it’s about crafting your website content so that it shows up in search results when people look for products or services like yours.
Optimizing your SEO starts with understanding what your audience searches for, how they search, and the specific words and phrases they use. From there, it’s about incorporating those search terms into your website in a way that search engines can easily read and rank.
Below, we’ll cover SEO basics for small businesses and provide five practical tips to get you started on improving your website’s visibility.
Why is SEO important?
When your website content is properly optimized, it increases your chances of being seen on search engines and appearing near the top when someone searches for your type of small business.
Consider this: there are millions of websites out there. When it comes down to your business and your competitors, effective SEO tells search engines that your content provides the best solutions, helping put your site at the top of search results.
SEO is one of the most cost-effective ways to attract attention and drive organic traffic to your site, without paying for ads or rankings.
SEO generally falls into four key areas:
Technical: Making sure your website loads quickly, has no broken links, and is mobile-friendly.
Local SEO: Helping your small business show up in searches from members of your local community.
Content Structure and Keywords: Ensuring search engines can read and understand your content while incorporating the search phrases your audience uses.
Link Building and Backlinks: Building and improving the number of quality links that lead back to your site.
Think of SEO like a prize to be won—websites that perform best in these areas are the ones that rise to the top in search engine results.
SEO is one of the most effective “free” ways to attract attention and drive organic traffic to your website, without having to pay for ad placement or rankings.
What is Organic Traffic?
Organic traffic refers to visitors who find your website through search engines using keywords, rather than through paid advertising. This is the type of traffic that most marketers focus on growing.
SEO plays a key role here because it helps ensure your site content is relevant to what people are searching for, increasing the chances your pages rank higher in organic search results.
What are Keywords/Keyphrases and How Do They Affect My SEO?
Keywords and keyphrases are essentially the search terms people type into search engines when looking for answers, products, or services. They are the combinations of words that solve a user’s question or problem.
It’s important to know that search engines like Google don’t rank your website as a whole—they rank individual pages based on the keywords and phrases within each page.
To improve your SEO, your site should naturally include the relevant words and phrases that your potential customers are searching for.
Be careful not to overdo it, though. You may have seen websites that cram random keywords into the bottom of a page or in other spots. This practice, called keyword stuffing, can actually hurt your SEO by signaling to search engines that your content isn’t valuable or relevant.
How do I improve my SEO?
In addition to researching the keywords and phrases that bring people to your site, it’s important to balance on-site SEO and off-site SEO. On-site SEO focuses on the keywords, content, and structure of your website, while off-site SEO involves the links and mentions your site receives from other websites. Together, these elements build your site’s authority and relevance, which can help improve your search engine rankings.
5 Basic Tips to Get Started with SEO
Optimizing your SEO isn’t a one-and-done task—it’s an ongoing process. Your website should always be relevant, easy to read, credible, accurate, well-built, honest, and mobile-friendly.
As search engine algorithms and the market evolve, it’s important to regularly revisit, reassess, and update your content to maintain and improve your site’s visibility and effectiveness.
Five essential tips to help get started on improving your website SEO
Use links to your advantage: Make sure you include internal links to other pages on your site whenever you create new content. This helps visitors navigate your website and signals to search engines how your pages are connected. You can also build relationships with other small businesses in related industries and request backlinks to your site in exchange for content or links to their sites.
Keep clear titles and content: Keep your page titles short, clear, and relevant. Clearly communicate the topic of each page, and make sure your main keywords appear in both the title and the content.
Keep your URLs search engine-friendly: Your URLs should be simple, descriptive, and easy to read for both visitors and search engines. For example, yourbusiness.com/contact-us or yourbusiness.com/services/social-media-strategy is much better than yourbusiness.com/11649/p004.htm.
Use image descriptions: Add an ALT tag to every image on your site. This gives a keyword-rich description of the image for search engines, helping improve your SEO while making your site more accessible.
Start a blog: Blogs position your business as an expert and bring visitors back to your site. They’re also a great way to naturally include relevant keywords that boost your SEO. Just make sure to avoid common blog-writing mistakes that can hurt engagement.
SEO 101 is just the start
SEO is an ongoing investment: When it comes to SEO, there’s a lot to learn and implement. However, a properly optimized site will continue to drive organic traffic to your small business website over time without constant intervention.
Focus on clear, keyword-rich content: Make sure your page titles, headings, and content include relevant keywords and phrases that reflect what your audience is searching for. This helps search engines understand your site and rank it higher in results.
Leverage internal and external links: Include links to other pages on your site as well as backlinks from reputable sources. These links boost your site’s authority and help guide visitors to important content, further improving your search rankings.
With consistent attention to these elements, you’ll see organic traffic grow and gradually climb the search engine results, bringing more visibility and potential customers to your business.
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