As a small business, the task of climbing the Google rankings to be number one in your industry may seem like a daunting task. But that doesn’t mean that SEO can’t work in your favour. With a basic understanding of SEO under your belt, you can use this guide as a handy how-to when actioning your new SEO strategy and enhance your small business marketing.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
1. Audit your website
The first step of any SEO strategy is to identify the problems and opportunities that already exist in your website. Having spent a little bit of time learning the ins-and-outs of SEO, it shouldn’t be too difficult to pick up on some quick and easy wins.
Create a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets, listing what needs to be updated on each page. Look out for things like:
- Alt text on images
- Keywords
- Opportunities for improved copy
- Broken links
- Messy sitemaps/information architecture.
For the smaller updates, assign a person on your team to the task of fixing them. You’ll immediately get some quick wins under your belt, and a handy checklist for bigger development works, which you may want to hire an agency to handle down the track.
2. Create a content strategy
After you’ve finished the more reactive component of your SEO strategy (i.e. fixing bugs), it’s time to get proactive. While it takes some experience to develop really effective content strategies to enhance your SEO, you can create your own in-house strategy by:
- Creating a list of relevant keywords from your industry
- Using those keywords to generate ideas for content
- Assigning someone in your team to write the posts (or outsourcing to an agency)
- Working with a content schedule, so you can update content on a regular basis.
Remember, content is a long-term SEO strategy. You won’t see immediate results, but with perseverance and consistency, you could see well-earned results down the road.
3. Upscale your efforts with agency support
Unless you have your own internal SEO team, there are some strategies and technical work that requires an experienced touch in order to be effective. When it comes to search strategies that cost time and money (like, for example, AdWords), investing in a digital marketing team can pay off big time.
Not only do you free up your internal resources to work on what they know best, but you also know that you’re getting more bang-for-your-buck with external expertise on your side.
These three steps will give you a broad action plan to improve your business’ SEO. But remember — the only way to succeed is to be consistent with your approach. If you’re struggling with your SEO strategy and want to see results, contact the team at Redline Digital today.