Your website and social media channels offer you some of the best ways to promote your start up and get it the attention it needs to thrive. At least 93% of all internet experiences are started with a search engine search. The two top activities people engage in online are searches and email. Most people do not spend the time to scroll last the first page of their search engine results. Whether you hire a search marketing company or plan your own search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, these tips will help.
- Pick the right keywords. This is the first step in developing a great SEO branding strategy. Any search marketing company will tell you that the cornerstone of your campaign will be your keyword selections. There are tools you can use to pick the best ones based on the demographics of your client and customer base and you can do research into search trends to give you the best keywords for your campaign. This part of the campaign will always be a work in progress, You will need to test, tweak and change as needed.
- Consider using some local SEO terms. If you have a brick and mortar business or a local company, you should make it easy for people around you to find your business. The option in Google to find businesses that are “near me” have increased dramatically and are increasing all of the time. This means using SEO keywords that have your location throughout your content and everywhere. You should also make sure your address is on your site and that you are listed correctly with Google and other search engines. You do not need to work at a search marketing company to know that you need people to be able to find you if they are going to buy products or services from your business.
- Do not neglect mobile users. In the last few years, the number of people who access and use the internet from their mobile devices has been greater than the number of people who access it from a computer. If your content cannot be viewed on mobile devices, you will lose a substantial amount of traffic. This is especially important for your local SEO efforts. For people who are out and about and looking for places to go and eat, if your restaurant’s website cannot be viewed on a mobile device, you need to rework it until it can be.
- Simplicity is your friend. You want to connect your startup to your target client and customer base. You want your messages to be simple, easy to read (the text should be done with simple, sans-serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica) and helpful. Try to think about the needs of the people who visit your website. People who look over your site should not have to be experts in your industry to know what your site is talking about.
- Put your main keywords in some key places. You should put your target keywords in your URL, domain name, tags, descriptions, tag lines, content and the descriptions and names of your images. This will help push it higher up on those all important search engine search results pages. You need to update your content on a regular basis so you have fresh material that can be found by the search engines and they send out spiders to index sites and find certain terms. Your website should not be allowed to get stale.
- Use your keywords in your social media posts. Google can index Tweets, for instance, include your search engines when you post to all of your social media channels. This will also expand the reach these posts have, say search marketing company experts.
- Remember that all of your messaging has to work together. The messages on your website need to mirror the messages on your website. They both need to mirror the messages you use in your print advertising and press materials.
Your SEO strategy will be a work in progress. When you spend some time working on this, you will find it can help you grow your business and raise awareness of your company’s brand.