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Every business knows they need a website, but fewer consider what strategies they’ll need to draw traffic to that website. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a technique used to boost your site’s visibility in search results, increasing organic web traffic. When utilized to its fullest extent, it’s a complex and ever-evolving marketing technique, but there are a few key steps you can take to implement SEO best practices on your own. Here’s our ultimate step-by-step guide to creating an SEO strategy for your small business.
1. Determine Goals and KPIs
The first step is to decide exactly what you’re hoping to achieve with your SEO strategy. You obviously want to boost your company’s success, but what does that look like for you? Lead form submissions? Phone calls? Product sales directly on your website? Product sales in-store?
Establishing key performance indicators, or KPIs, allows you to more accurately track and quantify the success of your SEO efforts. For example, if you run an e-commerce website, you want to increase digital product sales. KPIs that you can track include click-through rates, conversion rates, and qualified website visitors. By establishing clear metrics to track, you can more efficiently and effectively adjust your strategy and optimize your site for success.
2. Perform an SEO Audit
Once you have an idea of what success looks like for your business, you can begin identifying areas for improvement. This is done through a comprehensive SEO audit. To perform an SEO audit, you’ll need to do a detailed analysis of your website that looks for things like keyword density, site structure, site speed, and mobile-friendliness.
To perform an effective SEO audit, you’ll need a few tools to assist you. These include Google Analytics — to look at your bounce rate, traffic volume, and top pages — as well as a keyword ranking tool. Popular SEO tools that can assist with audits include Semrush, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog.
3. Do Keyword Research
At the heart of every SEO strategy are keywords. Keywords are the words or phrases associated with your industry that users will search when trying to find relevant results. Targeting relevant keywords will allow you to most effectively optimize your content and appear in search results for searches containing those keywords or phrases.
If you’re a small business, consider targeting long-tail keywords that are more specific phrases with less competition. It can also help to focus on local search terms if you serve a specific geographic area. For example, instead of targeting “restaurants” or “brunch restaurants,” try targeting “brunch restaurants tempe az” or “creme brulee french toast tempe az.” The more specific the key phrase, the less competition you’ll have to rank for it. Just remember to analyze search volume, as there’s no point in ranking for a keyword that no one is ever searching for.
4. Develop a Content Plan
Content is one of the most critical elements of any SEO strategy. Using your target keywords, you’ll need to develop a content plan that identifies your most important pages and establishes a plan for creating new ones.
Your content plan will vary depending on your industry, goals, and KPIs, but virtually all content plans will include blog posts, service or product pages, and location-specific pages. Blogs address common customer questions, either directly or indirectly. For example, if you run a roofing business, you may want to create topics around commonly searched questions regarding roofing, such as “When do I know it’s time to get a new roof?”
Make sure to inject relevant keywords into all of your content — in a natural way — to help Google understand its relevance to the audience’s search. When executed properly, this will help you establish authority and rise through Google’s search result rankings.
5. Create a Plan for Site Updates
Your SEO strategy should also include ongoing improvements to your website, whether technical improvements or updated content. These updates ensure that Google can effectively crawl and index your website while providing visitors with a better user experience.
Common technical improvements include page load speed, schema markups, and internal linking. You should also refresh your website copy, rewrite blogs, and update service/product pages periodically to ensure that readers are getting updated, relevant content. Develop a timeline for implementing these changes to ensure they don’t get put on the back burner in favor of content creation. While it’s understandable that small businesses have limited time and resources to dedicate to in-house SEO, a holistic approach is critical for effective results.
If you need help increasing your website’s visibility online, look no further than IDG Advertising, Arizona’s premier digital marketing company. Headquartered in Orange County, CA, our team of analysts and copywriters creates bespoke SEO strategies with high-quality content that will boost your rankings and drive local traffic to your business online. To find out more about our SEO marketing services for East Valley, AZ, companies, give us a call today at 714-221-4377 or contact us online.
