Three Simple Ways to Conquer SEO

It’s only natural that search engine optimization (SEO) intimidate small business owners, because it puts them between a rock and a hard place. The online marketing strategy is meant to garner more web traffic, which means that a higher amount of business leads come to the business’s website. These leads are then converted into sales, and that’s how SEO makes businesses money. According to a study released by OutBrain, search engines are the best drivers of traffic to content websites, a sentiment that’s echoed by statistics showing that 93% of all online experience begins with the use of a search engine.

While they know they need it to compete in this Internet saturated business world of today, they don’t know if they can make it work with their budgets. This leaves small business owners asking two questions. Can they afford SEO, or can they afford to go without SEO?

Thankfully, there’s a third option–DIY SEO. While optimizing your site can be quite tricky and complicated, if you are a smaller business with a small website, there are many SEO efforts which you can make. This method can’t guarantee success, nor is it “free,” since you’ll have to invest a ton of time. However, if you can’t make SEO work on your budget, it might be your best bet for online success. Here’s how you can do it, too.

1. Do Your Keyword Research.

Developing a list of the right keywords is an SEO staple, because your keywords and phrases have a profoundly direct impact on the overall performance of your website. Use the Wordstream Free Keyword Tool to help you generate your target words and phrases. It offers thousands of ideas from a massive database of more than a trillion unique searches, and it even outperforms some of the paid alternatives in the market.

2. Start a Blog.

Now that you’ve got your keywords, what are you to do with them? You naturally should incorporate them throughout your website–in the headlines, meta-data, URLs, and everywhere else possible–but you should also weave them into your on-site content. The more keywords you have, the more search engines will relate your site to them. The more relevant your site is for a topic, the higher it’ll rank, I.E. have SEO success.

Blogs can also help in a more technical way, too. The more blogs you write, the more pages your site accumulates. Also, keeping your blog updated lets a search engine know that your site has the most up-to-date information. The more up-to-date, high quality, relevant pages that a search engine indexes, the better your search engine ranking will do.

3. Get on Social Networks.

Yes, you need a Facebook and Twitter, at the very least. It could take a whole other article to explain the benefits of social media marketing, but for now, know that according to a study in 2013 from Searchmetrics, a strong social presence correlates with strong SEO. Sites with higher social user engagements rank higher, which means that the more likes, comments, and tweets that your site has affiliated with it, the better your SEO is.

Social media also gives you a great platform to build links, and share content. People who don’t regularly check your blog will see your post come up in their newsfeed, and check it out. What’s more, users will also share high-quality content, which amplifies its reach, exposing your previously inaccessible audiences to your brand.

These are only a few of the most practical, simple things that you can do yourself to improve your site’s SEO. Of course, it’s not wise to look at SEO like an expense, because it’s really an investment. If at all possible, it’s worth your while to invest in a professional SEO company. Though the cost of their services will remain fixed (unless you upgrade or downgrade your plan), they’ll help you earn more revenue, and eventually start paying for themselves.

In the mean time though, roll your sleeves and start plugging away.

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Velocity Agency is a digital marketing and advertising firm specializing in digital and internet marketing & advertising, print, web design, graphic design, film, and HD video promotion and post-production. Velocity serves clients all over the United States from our Metairie, LA office just outside of New Orleans by strategically implementing proprietary tools and techniques to get you the most conversions for your business through lead generation, cost-per-acquisition, and top line revenue.