Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is far more complicated than the typical dentist or other small business owner knows. But how do you find a qualified dental SEO expert?

It is sad to see so many hiring unqualified “SEOs” who could be anything from blog comment spammers to private blog network (PBN) operators.

Read on to find out why you must be very cautious about who you hire — and how to evaluate their abilities.

For best results, they should know your business and what is important to your patients and potential new clients or customers.

Types of SEO Expertise

Beyond the incompetent, there are individual and SEO agencies who have expertise in and knowledge about:

• • Technical SEO
  • Local SEO
  • Google My Business (GMB) – now also known as “Business Profile Manager” (BPM) — but most still refer to it as GMB
  • Particular niche industries

Every good SEO should have a working knowledge of technical SEO including Core Web Metrics.

And they should also know local SEO unless they specialize only in online sites with no physical location.

Niche SEO Knowledge

But do they know anything about your niche? Whatever niche your small business is in, faster results come from hiring someone who already knows your industry.

The other option is to hire someone willing to learn about your business and niche. But that takes time that will cost you.

For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll use dentistry because there are available case studies with details to support results from particular strategies.

But these concepts apply equally well to any small business niche.

Why a Dental SEO?

While most people have been to the dentist, they aren’t experts in what types of dental services dentists offer.

How can they even know what keyword phrases are relevant to your practice if they know nothing about dentistry?

Specializing in a particular niche leads to years of experience knowing what works — and just as importantly, what does not work.

Why pay for a dental SEO to gain experience at your expense when you can hire one that already knows your business?

Dental Practice SEO Strategy

Dental SEO Justin Morgan, who founded the #1 dental SEO company DentalMarketingGuy.com, shared niche dental case studies and his specific strategy for ranking dentists at the top of page one in the SERPs.

His four step process used to successfully rank dentists even when they launch a new brand and domain is:

1) Assessing Your Competition

Researching phrases your competition is ranking for is a shortcut to discovering what to focus on.

Premium SEO tools are used to compare how your content, traffic, and rankings compare to your competitors.

But knowledge of the industry is critical to using these tools. That is especially true if your SEO is running ads for you.

You never want to be paying for impressions or clicks on keyword phrases that are not relevant!

2) Marketing Analysis

The point of an SEO marketing analysis is to look for opportunities to increase your income using SEO.

What services do you offer? Are they mentioned on your website? Do you have pages or blog posts that rank for those services?

Unless you can bring in new patients, there is no point in spending money on SEO.

The good news, though, is that local SEO and especially Google My Business (GMB) / Business Profile Manager (BPM) are a gold mine for local businesses including dental practices.

3) Setting an SEO Strategy

Two dental offices offering the same services in the same city may need very different dental SEO strategies.

This is because of the way GMB / BPM works, and also how many dental practices are in your immediate area.

For example, if you’re in a small town and few other dentists are located near you, ranking might be fast and easy.

But the larger the city and the more dentist offices you’re competing with, the more time and money it will take to rank.

Gaining visibility is even tougher if your practice is located further from the center of a city than your competitor’s offices.

I once had small business clients whose location was centrally located equidistant from three major cities.

But because of that, they could not appear on any of the maps for those cities where their buyers were located.

That same issue can occur even in cities if you have many competitors closer in than you are.

An excellent dental SEO can often overcome those challenges.

4) Implementation

Unless you have an unlimited budget, it is of utmost importance to prioritize when implementing your strategy.

Focus first on what will increase income in the shortest amount of time. Creating and optimizing your GMB listing is a great place to start.

But that alone will not allow your business to rank if you have much competition.

Also, keep in mind that SEO for each specialty within a niche can vary substantially.

For example, are you a dental specialist such as a prosthodontist or oral surgeon whose patients come from referrals?

If yes, your target audience is other dentists rather than the public.

Are you a pediatric dentist? Your target audience is probably a mom who will be researching. So you don’t need to rank #1 because moms will be calling multiple dentists to choose one!

Always keep your intended audience in mind when deciding on an SEO strategy to adopt.

SEO Requires Continuous Improvement

You will need a long-range plan of continuous improvement. That plan would include:

• Regularly updating your GMB listing with new content and offers
• Creating listings in trusted local directories
• Claiming your social media profiles
• Installing a blog and publishing quality content regularly

Some SEOs offer all of the above services within their agency or by working with freelancers.

Others may refer you to experts they trust for the above services and those mentioned below.

Additional Strategies to Consider

Even if your SEO does not offer all of these, they may advise adding them to your marketing mix:

• Email marketing: Few small businesses build and utilize their mailing lists properly. The easiest person to sell to is an existing patient, client or customer!
• SMS marketing: Fill last-minute cancellations by offering last-minute discounts to existing clients who can fill those spots!
• Upselling: Do your dental hygienists set new appointments? Are you collaborating with them to encourage patients to complete treatment plans?

Always ask for referrals to a trusted provider whenever your SEO suggests a new strategy to add to your marketing plan.

Ready to Interview SEOs Now?

My goal in writing this post is to hopefully keep dentists and other small businesses from bad SEO practices.

Doing dental SEO wrong can severely damage your online presence and tank your income!

Be prepared when you contact an SEO. Many are very secretive, but if you ask direct questions hopefully you can get honest answers.

Write down your questions in advance. Ask them what SEO tools they use and what exactly they will do for you.

If someone says they “do SEO” and that is all the detail you can get out of them, give them a pass and find someone else!

SEO-optimized infographics are a blog post powerhouse.

They drive massive traffic to your site, get tons of engagement, build your brand, get lots of backlinks and more.

Most of all, they help your blog content land on Google’s first page consistently.

Not by luck, not once in a while, but intentionally and frequently.

Why does that matter? Because the average traffic share of Google’s first page is 91.5 percent (basically everybody).

And if you’re the first result?

The first result gets 32.5 percent of search traffic!

That’s a major leg up on your competitors.

So how do you do that? It’s not by writing a hundred blog posts with a hundred infographics (or even a thousand).

It’s by writing one blog post that features an engaging, SEO-optimized infographic!

That’s right, focusing on SEO-optimized infographics is a reliable way to drive traffic and grow your audience.

It’s something all content creators and business owners can do …but don’t!

What you need at your disposal is an understanding of how visual content and blog posts come together to land on Google’s first page of results.

That’s what this post is all about.

Everyone loves a budget-friendly content marketing strategy

You might be wondering why SEO-optimized infographics over other types of content?

Why not run paid ads on your blog to expand their reach? Create cool videos on YouTube? Sponsor conferences and networking events to get your name out there?

Two words: accessibility and scalability.

Learning a few SEO basics is free, and it’s very easy to design SEO-optimized infographics.

There are a lot of online design tools that provide you with easy-to-customize infographic templates, a simple editor and tons of educational design resources to help you out.

You’d be surprised at the kinds of professional designs bloggers can create on their own today.

On the other hand, paid ads get expensive very fast.

You can purchase links on other sites (sometimes for hundreds of dollars per link) at the risk of receiving a Google penalty.

Purchasing links goes against Google’s guidelines and if you get caught, it’ll drastically reduce your organic traffic for months!

Not worth it.

Hiring professional designers or graphic design agencies is not risky. But a single infographic design can cost you a few hundred dollars or a few thousand (and that’s just the design, not the research or SEO-optimization).

That’s not something you can really scale.

Understanding a bit of SEO, creating your own SEO-optimized infographics and getting free links is risk-free and budget-friendly.

Once you see that it’s working, you can also double (or triple, or quadruple) down on it to ramp up your results without any hassle.

Convinced?

Then let’s get to it!

What’s so special about SEO-Optimized infographics?

Convincing Google your post should be on page one is what SEO is all about.

When it comes to SEO, Google and other search engines have specific ranking factors – factors they use to determine the value of online content.

These factors aren’t a secret, and by following best practices, you can easily satisfy Google’s requirements.

Here’s where infographics come in.

In Brian Dean’s latest list of Google’s ranking factors, he shares a ton of factors that infographics easily impact. Here are just a few:

• Mobile optimized
• Keyword in description tag
• Number of backlinks
• Page loading speed
• Keyword in title
• Title tag starts with the keyword
• Keyword density
• Image optimization
• Keyword appears in H1 tag
• Bounce rate/Dwell time
• Keyword in the title tag
• Repeat traffic
• Keyword in URL

SEO-optimized infographics absolutely impact these ranking factors.

Let’s start with everyone’s favorite – backlinks.

Backlinks are just links on other pages pointing back to your content.

A solid, well-researched, informative and original blog post has high chances of being shared as a post or linked back to as a reference. And, guess what?

Infographics are one of the best, cost-effective ways to get quality backlinks.

Infographics are the most shared form of content online for a reason.

Since infographics are so popular and engaging, more publications are willing to syndicate them or share them in their own content without even being asked (over other types of content).

There are also some technical steps you can take to make your infographic SEO-effective.

Focus on a long-tail keyword and make sure you’ve placed it in the H1 tag, the body text of your infographic post, the URL and so on.

Now for the indirect ways SEO-Optimized infographics influence SEO factors.

Infographics are visual and captivating. That’s how they affect dwell time (the length of time people spend viewing your post), along with repeat traffic (how often they return).

The more time people spend viewing your content and coming back to it, the more relevant and valuable it appears in Google’s eyes.

Social media shares don’t directly impact SEO since Google doesn’t factor in shares and likes.

Of course, with more shares and likes, the higher the chances that your content gets viewed and linked back to.

If you’re creating content that has a tendency to get shared more, you have a clear advantage.

That doesn’t mean an infographic about any random topic will work (hence the SEO-optimization).

It also boils down to the actual value of your content. If you’ve got good data and meaningful insights, then your infographic will take off.

That brings us to the process of creating SEO-optimized infographics.

I’m going to show you ways to do a bit of research for your infographic, along with how to format your infographic to make it as effective as possible.

Good research, facts and stats are the heart of SEO-optimized infographics

Cool looking visuals might lure unsuspecting viewers to check out your infographic.

But without any real meat or relevance, people will bounce (bounce rates, also a ranking factor).

Your infographic won’t pick up any steam, publications won’t want to share it or syndicate it and Google won’t care about it.

Insightful and compelling content is how you reward your audience for clicking and encourage them to comment, share, link back to it and more.

My research phase has three essential stages

1. Choose a topic your audience actually cares about

Why rank for “things cats do” if you sell an online invoicing tool?

Unless there’s a really interesting overlap between small business owners and avid cat lovers, I’d focus on something more relevant.

Let’s say you’re a real estate agent targeting new homeowners. What do homeowners ask questions about? What issues are important to them today? How would you find out?

You can use tools like FaqFox to scrape forums for questions directly related to your topic.

First, enter your topic. Then enter any relevant sites/online forums where people would ask questions about it.

You can even click on one of the tags that appear for a few site suggestions. Then hit search:

FAQFox pulls up popular posts on your topic that you can check out and start brainstorming over.

This is a great way to find out what kind of questions your target audience is asking and what kind of content has been created.

I also like Brian Dean’s suggestion of checking out Udemy courses. While he’s talking about choosing blog post topics, it certainly applies to infographics as well.

You can search for courses by keywords or categories and Udemy shows you the most popular ones.

Best of all, people are paying for this content so clearly it’s valuable to them!

He breaks down that process for you in his recently updated blog post.

2. Select a long-tail keyword

Once you’ve got a topic in mind, you have to choose your angle. More importantly, you’ll need to determine a long-tail keyword for your infographic.

Keyword research is important because it’s the only way people can find your content.

If you use terms that people don’t use for their searches, then Google won’t understand how your content is relevant to what people search for.

3. Conduct original research on your topic

The whole point of research is to make a new discovery, or put old ideas to the test. To do that, there are tons of research methods for you to use to get your answers:

• Ask industry professionals
• Analyze various sources of existing data
• Survey or poll your users/subscribers
• Run your own experiment and share your findings

I’ll elaborate on a few of those research methods.

Asking your industry

A great way to add value to your infographic is to get insights from industry experts.

‘People’ is a vague term, but when you can say “300 homeowners share their favorite tools for budgeting” or “300 real estate agents share tips on finding helpful home insurance policies”, then your infographic has some appeal and real validation.

Survey or poll your users

There are a number of tools out there like Survey Anyplace, Survey Monkey or Pollfish that make conducting surveys simple. Even with free versions, you can design and send out a professional-looking survey to collect data.

Running your own experiments

Running your own experiment is a great way to validate yourself as a leader in the industry.

You get to establish yourself as a direct source of new, helpful information.

Plus your unique findings are exclusive to you, which makes promoting your infographic much easier.

You can also check out this in-depth resource on doing online research (including finding reliable stats, sources, quotes and visuals) to find relevant data the old-fashioned way.

Part 2: Format your infographic post for search engines

In a lot of ways, when it comes to SEO, you can treat your infographic like any other blog post.

Using headers, inserting keywords, determining a URL structure are all ways to influence your infographic’s SEO power.

Let’s take a look at that list I shared before:

• Mobile optimized
• Keyword in the title tag
• Number of backlinks
• Keyword in description tag
• Page loading speed
• Keyword in title
• Title tag starts with the keyword
• Keyword appears in H1 tag
• Image optimization
• Keyword density
• Bounce rate/Dwell time
• Repeat traffic
• Keyword in URL

If your blog is already mobile-friendly, then you’re all set. If you’re not sure, run this test to find out and make the necessary changes.

Some of the factors in that list you can directly influence, while others depend on the quality of your content, the topic, how readable it is and so on.

Make sure your infographic is relevant to your niche and target audience. What you share with a dental SEO would be different than what you share to the patients of a dentist.

Once your infographic is ready to be shared, here are a few essential tips for posting an SEO-optimized infographic.

Insert your long-tail keyword in the right places

Like any blog post, you want your long-tail keyword to show up where it counts – the introduction, the URL, in the H1 header and so on.

Be sure to write up a brief introduction (100-150 words) explaining what the infographic is all about, too.

This lets you include your long-tail keyword, other relevant terms, and link out to helpful resources. An intro is also helpful to your audience, as well.

Below is an example of a brief intro for one of our infographic posts that has done pretty well.

It shares results of a survey on visual content marketing. I’ll share some data regarding how that infographic post has performed later on.

Use SEO plugins to help optimize your post

For WordPress, a simple tool like Yoast lets you tweak important sections (the meta description and URL slug) and it also lets you know what could be improved/added.

There are actually a few alternative SEO plugins that you can use. You can also check out Brafton’s roundup of SEO marketing tools to give your content that SEO edge.

You have to optimize the infographic itself – the image file

Your infographic itself also needs to be optimized. Here are a few SEO factors that matter.

Like any image in a blog post, you want to include your alt text. Alt text tells Google what an image is all about so it knows when to pull it up.

Typically, you can just use your long-tail keyword as the alt text.

Page loading speed is another ranking factor. Your page loading speed will be impacted by the size and file format of your infographic.

Your infographic should be a small image file (less than a MB), with a resolution around 72-100 PPI, and an optimal file format (PNG, JPEG or GIF).

Tools like compressor.io let you reduce the size of images. This is helpful if your infographic is a little large.

Promote your awesome, SEO-optimized infographic and get even more backlinks!

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, backlinks are a major contributing factor when it comes to your content ranking.

The more authoritative sites that point to your content, the better. Backlinks tell Google your content is valuable, engaging, and well-liked for that topic.

Beyond just asking people to link to it as a reference, you should pitch your infographic to sites, offer to write a post on the topic pointing back to your infographic, or encourage sites to syndicate your piece.

Those are just ideas, but you want a backlink outreach strategy in place for any major pieces of content you publish.

Pro-Tip: If you conducted a survey to create your infographic, then reach out to all your respondents and ask for a backlink. They’ll likely be interested in the results and it’ll provide value for their audiences so they’ll be happy to do it.

Content marketers understand the value of visual content, particularly infographics.

They know that featuring SEO-optimized infographics on their blog or sharing it on their social pages will easily engage their audience.

If your content is relevant to the topics they typically cover, they’ll be receptive to your request.

So how did our visual marketing statistics post do anyway? Great! We secured over 1000 backlinks for the post according to Ahrefs:

And we’re dominating the first page of Google search results.

So it does work, in case you were wondering! Now let me know what you think. Have you tried a similar strategy and seen worthwhile results?

Or is there something my approach is missing that would make it even better? Comment and let me know!

How do you come up with unique blog content that Google will send you visitors to read? It can be a daunting task to regularly create new and unique content.

However, it is a necessity to remain relevant, get higher search engine rankings, and grow your business.

The process of improving your ranking is evolving as Google’s algorithms become more sophisticated. Historically, optimizing your content for search focused on getting as many backlinks as possible.

Search engine ranking today takes user intent into account. Simply building links to your website is no longer enough. Welcome to the age of semantic search.

What is Semantic Search?

Semantic search goes beyond just using keywords to bring up search results. It refers to search engines taking into consideration both the intent and the contextual meaning of the phrases users put into a query.

The purpose is to improve the accuracy of and deliver the most relevant results to users on the Internet.

Try TextOptimizer: A Semantic SEO Tool

Using this tool will help you write content containing meaningful words. It keeps you focus more on topics than only keywords or phrases.

It is a content optimization tool that helps you improve your existing content using semantic analysis. Or you can start from scratch and use it when creating your content.

How Can TextOptimizer Help?

TextOptimizer is a simple to use tool for those who are not SEO experts. It helps you know how your content will fair in search engines before you publish it.

The content you write is broken down by different types of search intent such as “compare”, “go”, and “buy”.

Where your content shows up on search results depends upon how well it matches the possible intents of users.

Your content is analyzed and classified by TextOptimizer. It lets you know whether your content meets users’ intent and recommends changes.

Click on the image below to watch a short video.

How to Use TextOptimizer to Increase Your Rankings

The tool is so easy-to-use and straightforward, I was amazed. I am not an SEO, and if I can use it, anyone can. Compared to SEMRush, this tool is less complicated and made more for non-technical people.

Below we will outline the process for optimizing existing content.

TextOptimizer looks at the content at the URL you provide and compares it to Google SERPs. It then gives you an optimization score between 0 and 100.

To try out the product for free, go to https://textoptimizer.com/ and enter the URL of your content.

For this post, I will use the URL from this article: 7 Simple Strategies To Improve Rankings to Get More Leads From Your Website.

TextOptimizer then shows you the main semantic topics that your text is about and why.

The tool then analyzes your content to determine who is most likely to have their search expectations met from reading your content.

Content Format Analysis

Well-formatted and well-written content is essential, especially with most people reading on mobile devices.

If your content is not laid out in an easy-to-read format, you will lose readers. Sentences that are too long will appear on mobile as a massive block of text.

TextOptimizer makes this easier by evaluating your content and giving it a score based on the:

• Richness and diversity of the words used
• Number of sentences
• Variety of used verbs
• Sentence length

TextOptimizer then shows you some examples of semantically related words that are missing from your content.

By adding some of them, you will increase the chances of being found in search by those looking for what your content offers.

You will need to upgrade to sufficiently increase your chances of ranking because you need to see all the missing semantically related words. See screenshot below.

The words that are in gray are already included in your text. Try to add between 15 and 25 of the other words with the white background.

Optimize Your Content for Search Engines

With TextOptimizer, making sure your content is optimized for search is a straightforward process. The tool accomplishes this by:

• Suggesting words to add and remove
• Analyzing search engine results
• Comparing the results with your content
• Telling you what steps you should take to optimize your text

The processes behind the scenes of TextOptimizer analyze:

• Patterns
• Semantics
• Intent
• Concurrency

When you get your results, next click “Optimize my Text Now”.

Select the Search Engine

In this step, you can choose the search engine where you want to improve your rankings. We recommend you select Google because they have the lion’s share of searches. (Later, you may wish to optimize for Bing.)

Your next step is to choose which term you want to rank better for and optimize for search. This would be the focus keyword phrase used in your SEO plugin.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the search term I chose for this step is “improve rankings” because that is the keyword phrase used in the Yoast SEO plugin.

This content scores “fairly optimized” with a score of 76%. However, there is room for improvement.

According to Ann Smarty, the minimum score you should aim for is 90% or higher.

There is no need to worry because TextOptimizer will help you rank for your chosen phrase or phrases by suggesting semantically related words for you to add to your content.

TextOptimizer also suggested action phrases for you to add to your existing content to encourage action on the part of the reader.

You should select the words that fit best and make the most sense. Avoid adding any that don’t sound natural.

Repeat the process until the results of your analysis reach at least 90%. You can also repeat the same process for additional related phrases.

New Feature: Build Full Sentences, Not Just Concepts

Not only will TextOptimizer suggest words and concepts for you to add to your content, but it has also gone one step further.

With the addition of their new feature, you will also be given entire sentence and phrase suggestions to add to your content as seen in the screenshots below.

Do You Use Chrome?

Make optimizing your text easier by using the Chrome Plugin. You can download it from your TextOptimizer account.

Or you can download it directly from Chrome as a browser extension.

You Even Get Suggestions for Future Blog Topics

TextOptimizer does not only help you create new or modify existing content for better SEO and value for readers. It also gives topic suggestions for new articles and blog posts.

Answering questions that searchers are asking can help you get more eyes on your content and increase your rankings.

In addition to suggested questions for you to answer, TextOptimizer also tells you the number of your competitors who have already posted an answer to the same question.

Optimize New Content Before You Publish It

If you choose to check your potential rankings before you write your content, TextOptimizer has you covered.

Start by selecting the search engine where you want to rank higher, just like you did with your existing content. Again, we suggest starting with Google.

The next section is also the same as before: enter your chosen search term.

From the next screen shown below, select “new text” and add your search term.

TextOptimizer will return to you a list of semantically related optimized words to choose from when writing your new content.

Below are actionable semantically related word suggestions for you to add to your new text to encourage action by the reader.

Follow the same recommendations given previously for existing content.

Suggestions on How Best to Use TextOptimizer

As stated above, this useful tool will check the search results in Google and use semantic analysis to extract related terms and topics.

You can use these as subheadings for your post. Try to use about 20 related terms in your article.

You can also run the content ideas tab to generate suggested questions your article can answer based on what searches your users are making.

When you have completed your article, use the “paste in text” option and rerun the tool. TextOptimizer will suggest ways to improve your content for both your readers and the search engines.

The tool will encourage you to use technical and specific terms and avoid vague words. Your goal is to score above 90%.

Are you ready for your content to rank higher in search? TextOptimizer is the easiest way I have seen to make that happen.

Is your business already on the web? Great! Studies by BIA/Kelsey show that 97% of consumers search online for products and services they need.

It goes without saying that targeted leads are what the majority of businesses desire. Those can be attained through effective technical SEO.

Importance of SEO: improving your organic search rankings

A report by Outbrain tells us that Google is the top traffic source to content pages, contributing on average of 68% of a website’s traffic.

The beauty of SEO is that smaller sites stand a chance against big brands in ranking on the results page. Hence, when used as a engine for growth for startups and SMEs, SEO can be extremely powerful.

We all know that Google loves quality content. In fact, you must have heard a million times that ‘content is king’. So ever since you started thinking seriously about SEO, you have been fervently producing content.

However, the focus on content completes only part of the SEO puzzle. In order to give your content ‘wings’, you must not overlook the importance of technical SEO.

Apart from getting your website ready for easy crawling by Google, technical SEO efforts give you substantial structural leverage for better visibility on search engines.

History of Technical SEO

Just a few years back, all a website needed for higher search engine ranking was a well-developed structure, images, keyword rich meta tags and keyword stuffed pages.

But now, the scenario has changed. As illustrated in the infographic below, recent years have seen a lot of new requirements on the technical SEO scene.

As part of their effort to provide users with better quality websites on the search engine, Google has been raising the bar for webmasters and becoming less tolerant of suspect practices.

For example, if you are trying to hide links or stuff your pages with keywords , Google is going to pick it up quickly. Advances in technology has also improved the spiders’ ability to pinpoint these issues.

Most recently, even interstitial ads and call-to-actions (CTAs) have been classified as misconduct from an SEO perspective.

Sites using them will see declines in rankings. Needless to say, thousands of sites have been adversely affected.

Technical SEO

If you look at each of the items outlined in the infographic, it is not to hard to predict Google’s next move.

Everything they roll out is in the interest of users, whether we are talking about the mobile update or the new requirement in security.

Interestingly, as a webmaster, SEO benefit aside, the implementation of the requirements is actually to the advantage of your website and its users.

For example, Reddit found that, every time they increase site speed, their page views and users increase. It is a direct relationship.

Hence, technical SEO guidelines may just be Google’s way of telling webmasters how they can serve their users better.

After all, this tech giant is about making the web a better place.  As such, you may want to seriously look into the individual items in the infographic to improve the functionality of the website.

Who knows, your income may just go up. Higher Google rankings would definitely be a sweet bonus.

What To Do Now ?

Is the term ‘technical’ making you somewhat uneasy? There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. It involves everything that is done on your website apart from the content and link building.

It takes into consideration a number of things, namely loading speed, mobile-friendliness, versions of site, and uniqueness of content, amongst others.

If some of these aspects are not taken care of, there is even a high possibility that you will be penalized by the search engines.

Not technically SEO inclined? Then be sure to send this infographic to your web developer!

If you are game for some DIY work, the use of WordPress and its endless list of plugins can do wonders for you. For a start, be sure to install the Yoast SEO plugin.

Go beyond keyword rich meta titles, optimized images, keyword filled pages or well-developed website structure, and start thinking ‘technical’ for increased targeted traffic.  By doing so, it is only a matter of time that floods of highly target traffic will come your way.

For more elaboration and recommendation of technical SEO best practices, see the infographic below. Click on it to see the original in a higher resolution.

Originally published Mar 26, 2017. Reviewed for relevancy and video created and added 5/18/19. Edited 12/2/22 to restore missing infographic.

Firstly, I just want to make it clear that I am NOT saying SEO is dead.

A few years ago, I touched upon a subject that had been in my thoughts for a while; the term ‘SEO’ needed a rebrand.

At the time my article didn’t receive a great reception, but I’d like to think I had a fair argument. Since then, I feel the industry has been taking step after step closer to what I call ‘Search UX’.

In fact, if you do a quick Google search you notice that popular SEO blog sites including Search Engine Land, Yoast & Search Engine Journal have also picked up on the increasing importance of UX in the SEO landscape.

The Negative Connotations Behind ‘SEO’

Even in the early days of the internet, UX was an important consideration for any brand that wanted to maximize the traffic coming into their website.

Albeit, until the last 6-7 years or so you could still make it to page one of Google with a shocking user experience by using tactics that focus on manipulating Google’s algorithms.

Back when keywords and links were the highest regarded ranking signals SEOs would typically focus on spamming and manipulating these, even though there was a risk of receiving a penalty from Google.

Global brands including The Washington Post, BBC and even WordPress have been penalized for using these ‘black-hat’ techniques in the past.

A lot has changed since those times. But if I’m being honest, I think this is where a lot of the bad connotations with SEO have originated.

Even today, we still have people asking us “can you get me 50 links a month focusing on X keyword?”. As all SEOs know, it simply doesn’t work like that.

The fact is, there’s no one thing that can get you to the top of Google, and there probably never will be.

Back in the early 2000s, you could do it by prioritizing keywords and links, alongside a few other factors such as onsite technicals and content.

This has evolved into a careful balance of offering a good user experience as well as a huge list of other factors, some of which include social media optimization, reputation management, and site architecture.

These changes have paved the way for SEO as a whole, meaning, the job of an SEO is a lot broader now than it was ten years ago; there are so many more signals and considerations.

Understandably, this means the role has become a lot more difficult.

It’s about offering the right content in the right format, providing the right experience that matches modern search intent, and delivering it faster than ever before.

The Move Towards Search UX

Google’s move towards prioritizing UX began back in 2011, with the release of their Panda algorithm.

This was an early signal that Google was adapting to a more user-focused experience, with the update focusing on the quality of content.

Shortly after Panda came Penguin, an update to Google’s algorithm that moved link manipulation and black-hat techniques to the forefront.

This was Google focusing specifically on what they had identified as a problem long ago. Just now they were publicly warning that link spam would be punished.

Within the next 3 years, Google introduced the Hummingbird and Rankbrain updates; both focusing on delivering search results that would answer users’ questions.

The updates meant that Google’s algorithm would follow more human-like search patterns, taking into account context, subject matter, and even synonyms.

Search now favors more conversational searches.

If you couldn’t answer a question with the information that your website is providing, or the actions you’re presenting users with, then your website wouldn’t rank as highly in the SERPs.

At this point, it was clear that the industry was moving towards a focus on relevance and good user experience.

It seemed the algorithm was becoming pretty accurate in interpreting human search behaviours, or at least more accurate than it was a few years ago.

This theory was further backed up by the Rankbrain update, which introduced machine learning as a major ranking factor.

How Can Brands Find the Right Balance Between SEO and UX?

From an agency perspective, this all means that it’s now a lot more difficult to manipulate the SERPs.

Brands have always had to play by Google’s rules, but never to the extent they do now. That’s why it’s important for brands to take note of this shift and adapt their SEO strategies to match it.

Technical SEO and UX go hand and hand with each other now more than ever, which makes sense.

If Google’s algorithm is ultimately trying to mimic human search patterns, then it’s going to take into account things like a website’s loading speed, the site structure and whether it’s optimized for mobile.

That means you must ensure your site is optimized for the audience you’re reaching — not simply the niche.

For example, if your audience is dentists, they do not use sites the same as a dental site targeting potential patients. All dental SEO is not the same.

And this holds true for every niche and audience. UX is more important than ever so you need to get this right!

And this algorithm is only going to get more advanced, taking more human-orientated factors into account.

SEO’s might have to unlearn the SEO approach and replace their thinking with a more human / searcher approach.

Whilst on the surface this may sound like a lot more work for us marketers, that’s not necessarily true.

In the past we’ve had to please both Google’s algorithm and users visiting our site through different strategies.

But with the algorithm prioritizing user experience more, this has sort of combined into one broader consideration; Search UX.

Of course, there are literally hundreds of other considerations, but if you focus on providing a good user experience you shouldn’t go wrong.

This will only resonate more over the coming months and years as Google’s focus on UX escalates.

What Does the Future Hold for Search?

The way people are searching is changing. And it’s changing fast. People don’t just search on desktops anymore.

In fact, mobile search overtook desktop way back in 2016. Google reinforced this change even further by moving to a mobile-first index in early 2018.

This means that your site should work better on mobile than desktop, not just ‘work’ on mobile. But it’s not going to stop here.

There are so many different devices and formats for people to search through; people search with their watches, tablets and even with their voice.

And these devices and formats are only going to become more popular, therefore becoming more influential in the world of search.

With this influx of devices and formats to consider, SEOs are going to have to spread their skillset across a much wider area.

This means looking at things like UX and site speed across each of these different formats. It’s important to remember that modern attention spans are nothing like they were even 5 years ago.

If your website doesn’t load within 2 seconds on each of these different platforms then you’re going to lose a lot of traffic.

While SEO folks have been saying “think about it from the user’s perspective” for a while, now they have to really mean it!

All in all, it really is good to see that Google is starting to move towards a focus on user experience.

Pay attention to the SEO’s that are accepting this change and remaining quiet; these are the people that will learn and move forward with the right strategies.

The SEO’s who complain or continue to talk about non-compliant techniques will start to get left behind. Google will continue to move towards a user-centric experience and that’s certainly a good thing.

The whole purpose of going digital today is to give an extra boost to your small business.

Something you should keep in mind is the importance of local SEO (search engine optimization).

The first perception people have of your business depends on where it is in local search results.

To know how to upgrade your SEO marketing, read the local SEO tips below.

1. Google Business Profile Engagement

Formerly known as Google My Business (GMB), optimizing and being active in your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the most critical aspect of local SEO.

Watch this video from a BizSugar Mastermind Community Webinar to fully understand how to claim, optimize and engage on your Google Business Profile:

2. Make the Best Use of Google Lens

Google Lens gives you the option of visual search optimization. People project that when it comes to local SEO, buyers will make Google Lens the most frequently used search engine.

For example, if you are running a shoe store, then Google Lens will show your specific audience an image that people can tap to decide whether to buy from you or not.

In fact, it is really important for marketers to seize the opportunity of Google Lens’s technology in order to run their businesses smoothly.

3. Optimization Via Voice Search Queries

Before moving towards digitalized marketing, it is extremely important to understand each of the features of SEO marketing.

Voice search queries are a new and amazing feature for running your business competitively and easily.

Voice search queries are basically a process where somebody asks any question and Google Voice triggers the markup points that sellers provide on their websites. It then shows relevant results to the askers.

But what is important about voice search for local SEO? Select a good assistant, such as Google Assistant, in order to get in Google’s common markup list.

That way, if anyone searches through conversational queries, they can get instant access to your website.

To get in the list of voice search queries on Google’s local SEO, you need to make sure to provide common and well-defined markups on your websites.

These include mentioning your opening and closing hours, payment methods, favourites list, cell phone number, address, and city. Other than this information, make sure to use sentences that begin with W’s, e.g., what, why, where, when, and who.

4. NAP Consistency

SEO marketing is worth nothing if you fail to depict the same NAP at all your logins. NAP stands for name, address, and phone number.

Even before the time of information technology, all of the top MNC’s (multinational corporations)—if they were still ruling as number one—had their business listings at the top of readers’ lists.

NAP consistency is must for promoting your local business through SEO.

What does Google really want? Well, if you correctly provide your NAP on the major directories on Google, you can easily catch your potential buyers.

If your business is small and you cannot afford to dive into a large pool of world-class business directories, then try the best you can to get listed within local business directories.

Another good tip is to be reviewed on the best listings. If your business gets 5-star ratings on various directories, that will enrich the development of your business.

5. Online Local Influencers

In 2017, www.daraz.pk, a number one ecommerce website of Pakistan, earned millions just on Black Friday.

The major reason behind the site’s phenomenal success was its dealing with online local influencers.

To jumpstart your SEO marketing, get access to online local influencers. Now the question is, who are online influencers?

They can be any bloggers, social media activists, or marketing campaigners. One of the major local SEO strategies is promotion through a popular social media personality.

For example, is there any blogger who is posting about ongoing events in your city and has access to many followers on Twitter or Facebook?

If so, then try to get your business associated with his or her social media platform.

Doing so can be the best way to promote your business in your location.

How does Google link to the influencer? Since 2010, Google has had the capability to show the results of an appropriate search of your choice by locating online influencers in its search results.

6. Get Hands-On Maximum Backlinks

Getting information on how to do local SEO is not like an economic theory, but is rather a practical process.

To give a boost to your business via SEO marketing, the very first step you should take is to get backlinks.

What is a backlink? It is when you link your website to another site’s domain. For example, if you sponsor a college concert with some cash or credit, that university will promote your business or brand name in its promotional campaign on its website.

Local SEO Will Grow Your Business

The advice above includes some of the best and most informative tips for you to promote your local business while working on proper SEO marketing techniques.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is one of the most important tools required in order to build a successful blog or website today.

Optimizing a website for search engines offers a variety of benefits that help to boost online visibility while ultimately increasing the number of page views and visitors you receive each day.

Implementing a few healthcare SEO tips when working in the healthcare industry can help to keep medical practices in the game and competing online for visitors and visibility.

Research Trending Topics and Keywords in Your Healthcare Niche

Research the latest trending topics and most relevant keywords in your niche using tools such as Google Trends and Google Analytics.

Post content and share updates using trending words and phrases to help boost your website’s SEO while also attracting the right audience and demographic.

Choose Appropriate Page Titles and Headers

Always use proper grammar and punctuation when crafting new page and post titles for your website. Avoid using hyphens whenever possible.

• Create titles based on the most significant topic covered in each piece you share.
• Research the keywords you want to use in your title to compare popularity and the current trend of the search.

Optimize each of your post’s titles each time you create and update.

Share Links to Other Content of Yours in Your Posts

Sharing links to other posts you have on your website or blog with each new update is a way to boost SEO.

It also increases page views from visitors who are actively browsing.

Including links to other content on your site with each new post is a quick way to create a sitemap.

A sitemap helps search engine bots to virtually “crawl” your website much easier and in less time.

Use a CMS That Support SEO Plugins

Use a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress that allows you to install SEO-related plugins.

With the right SEO plugins and a CMS such as WordPress, always guarantee that each piece of content you publish is fully optimized for all search engines.

• Implement tags, meta tags, and other keywords for each page
• Use your choice of SEO plugins and CMS

If you are unsure of how to go about implementing CMS such as WordPress and want an optimized healthcare website, consider hiring a professional web design company.

Using an advanced CMS is highly recommended for optimal tools to manage and apply these healthcare SEO tips and content management.

Allow Guests to Contribute Their Posts to Your Website

Allow other medical practitioners, dental SEOs, and professionals to contribute guest posts to your blog.

They are likely to share a link to your website using their social media profiles or official websites and blogs, boosting your SEO.

The more interaction you gain from other websites, the higher up your website will appear within the first pages of search results.

Guest Blog on Another Site

Connect with other medical professionals in your field to inquire about guest-blogging on their websites or social media pages.

In exchange, offer them a spot on your blog or within the next update you publish on social media.

When you share your posts on other professional pages or websites, you increase your credibility while building a positive, professional relationship for yourself in the medical field online.

The more your website’s link and optimized headlines appear on other websites, the better your search engine ranking.

Create and Link Your Social Media Accounts

Creating social media accounts is necessary for most professionals and companies to survive and thrive today.

Having a social media page specifically for your medical practice or its blog is a way to connect with potential patients. Social media also boosts your website’s SEO with each update you share.

Updating social media pages consistently is key to generating more followers while keeping loyal users genuinely interested in what you have to say.

• Cross-post your updates using multiple social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
• Choose the top keywords in your medical niche to grab the attention of new potential followers.

Create a posting schedule to prevent your followers from becoming bored or disinterested in your content.

Share Relevant and Engaging Updates on Social Media Using Relevant Keywords

Share relevant and engaging updates in your field of medicine on social media. Be sure to use relevant keywords in the title of the post you link.

Also include your selected keyword in the update you share on social media itself.  This link explains how to choose keywords.

Social media is a great tool to quickly boost your website’s overall search engine optimization organically.

The more optimized your website and online presence is, the easier it becomes to reach potential patients and clients in any field or industry.

Ready to Apply These Healthcare SEO Tips?

Implementing the right healthcare SEO tips and tricks can help you to quickly boost your medical practice’s overall ranking in both local and international search results across top engines today such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

Also read and watch the video on optimizing your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) in 6 Ways to Upgrade Your Local SEO Marketing Strategy.

People are always curious about what new SEO trends are coming. In this post, we will be discussing the eight most important trends that every SEO should start implementing in order to stay ahead in the SEO game.

The Top SEO Trends to Look Out for Are:

1. Voice search or voice assistants (such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices)
2. In-depth content and link building
3. Mobile-first indexing
4. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
5. The Knowledge Graph: Featured Snippets, and Quick Answers
6. Google RankBrain: AI & Machine Learning
7. User experience for SEO
8. Video and image search

So let’s get started and break each of these down.

1. Voice Search or Voice Assistants

Voice search was popular in 2017, but we will see the popularity of voice search increase.

The main reason why usage of voice search will grow is because of its convenience. No one likes to type longer keyword searches on their phones.

People use voice search on a daily basis to make phone calls, ask for directions, and get information without using a keyboard.

For multitasking addicts, voice search offers a great way to search online while doing something else, such as cooking, watching TV, and driving.

“Voice Search is one of the next big things in SEO, and this is something we can’t ignore as marketers.”

The following interesting facts make voice search or voice assistants the Next Big Thing in SEO:

• Nearly 71% prefer using voice search.
• “Google’s Voice Search can recognize 40 different core languages. It also recognizes various accents, including Australian, Indian, English, and more.” Source

The question is, what can you do about voice search from an SEO perspective?

When it comes to optimizing content for voice search and virtual assistants, SEOs or brands should start thinking about and implementing a different type of SEO strategy.

They need to focus more on long-tail keywords or natural language queries (the terms and phrases people use in everyday speaking).

The following is an example of a long-tail keyword or natural language query.

2. In-Depth Content and Link Building

We all know content and links are the most important ranking factors.  In-depth content and backlinks always play vital roles.

Without both, we cannot rank higher on the first page of search results.

Google’s spiders always love to index fresh, valuable, and detailed content that can help searchers learn about particular topics.

If we are going to talk about in-depth content, we need to consider the following points:

1. To write in-depth content on a subject, try to include all the information for which users could be searching. What do they need to know? Include it, and aim for 2000 words or more.
2. Find synonyms whose meaning adds value to your keywords and are worthwhile for your content. They will help the search engines and your potential readers.

To find synonyms or related keywords, you can do the following:

• Search your main keywords, and look for the keywords around the bolded keywords. Many of these are your important keywords, and you should consider adding them to your content.
• Now scroll to the bottom of the “Searches related to…” section. The words in bold here are also your important keywords.
• There are free tools, such as KeywordTool.io and Answer the Public, that can help you find related keywords.

Links are still important and this will not change, but it is important to focus more on quality rather than quantity.

Linkless mentions (backlinks) are also becoming a trust signal for search engines because search engines now have the ability to connect the mentions of brands with their corresponding web pages.

3. Mobile-First Indexing

Mobile-first indexing is the latest development by Google to make the web more mobile-friendly.

A study by BrightEdge found that 57% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, which means that most people love to search on mobile.

But Google’s current ranking system is typically based around the desktop version of a page’s content, and it shows the same content to mobile and desktop users.

This situation can cause issues with mobile pages because the current algorithms are not evaluating the relevance to the mobile user.

To make the results more relevant according to search query, Google now focuses on mobile-first indexing.

Here are some simple steps to help you prepare for mobile-first indexing.

A. Your Content Should Be Consistent Across Desktop and Mobile

With the mobile-first index, Google will first evaluate mobile content instead of looking at your desktop content.

This is why you should prepare your site for mobile-first index.

If your mobile site has less content on a mobile page than it has on your desktop site, then Google will probably consider the mobile version with less content in mobile-first indexing.

So you want to display the same amount of site content on both your desktop and mobile versions.

Let me explain that Google will not give full ranking weight to content that is hidden in tabs, accordions, and expandable boxes.

But with mobile-first index, Google will give full weight to these types of content if you implement them to enhance the user experience.

John Mueller has said, 

So the mobile-first indexing will index the mobile version of the page. And on the mobile version of the page it can be that you have these kind of tabs and folders and things like that, which we will still treat as normal content on the page even. Even if it is hidden on the initial view. Source

 B. Move Your M. Version to Responsive Design

If you have an m.xyz.com version of your site, switch over to a responsive design right away.

C. Don’t Forget to Add Structured Schema Markup

Adding schema markup code on your website can give it a significant boost in rankings.

D. Improve Your Page Loading Time

Site speed is always one of the most important factors for SEO, and with mobile-first index it is critical. So head over to Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Enter your website URL and click to “Analyze.” The tool will give you results within seconds to help improve your page speed.

E. Make Your Site Mobile Optimized, Not Just Mobile-Friendly

Many sites technically work on mobile devices. But when it comes to the quality of the websites, there is a huge gap when people actually use them.

A truly mobile optimized site should resize for multiple screens and resolutions.

If you are not sure whether your website is mobile optimized, check this Mobile-Friendly Test tool from Google.

Enter your URL and hit “Run Test.” The tool lets you know if you are on the right track or not.

4. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Google is currently rolling out Accelerated Mobile Pages in its mobile search results.

The question is, what is AMP? AMP is a framework designed to create fast-loading mobile web pages.

AMP consists of three basic parts: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP CDN. While creating for AMP, we need to be aware of the following:

• There are certain HTML tags you can’t use for AMP.
• You need to use a streamlined version of CSS.
• Third party JavaScript is not allowed with AMP.

I recommend you read this Quickstart guide here to get up and running with AMP.

For more details on how to create your AMP HTML page and on how it differs from basic HTML, check out the basic list here of required markups that your AMP HTML page should have.

Google also started highlighting AMP in its mobile search results, and you can test your pages on Google’s AMP Test tool.

5. The Knowledge Graph: Featured Snippets and Quick Answers

According to Wikipedia, “the Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base that Google and its services use to enhance the search engine’s results with information gathered from a variety of sources.”

The Knowledge Graph, Featured Snippets, and Quick Answers are the next big SEO trends.

The popularity of these resources has increased, and brands are now trying to appear in “position zero” in the SERP (search engine results page).

Featured snippets are the summaries of user queries, displayed at the top of Google’s organic results. To rank for position zero, work on the following steps:

1. Identify which questions Google users are asking according to your niche.
2. Create your best content for the purpose of answering questions. By doing so, there is a chance that Google will pick your content as a featured snippet.
3. Add a Q&A section to your website with an attractive, illustrative image.
4. Your content should be between 40 and 50 words, according to SEMrush’s analysis.
5. Results for queries such as, “how does,” “how do,” “how to,” “what is,” “why,” and “what” are more likely to earn a spot in the featured snippets, says stonetemple.

6. Google RankBrain: AI & Machine Learning

RankBrain is the third most important ranking signal in Google’s search algorithm and it is going to be even more important.

But what exactly is RankBrain? And how do you optimize for it?

RankBrain is a machine learning, artificial intelligence system that helps Google sort the search results.

Google RankBrain has already changed the whole search space.

Google is displaying organic search results with answer boxes, ads, carousels, featured snippets, and quick answers sections, all for a personalized experience.

The following information comes from this Search Engine Land article:

What Is Machine Learning?

Machine learning is where a computer teaches itself how to do something, rather than being taught by humans or following detailed programming.

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

True artificial intelligence, or AI for short, is where a computer can be as smart as a human being, at least in the sense of acquiring knowledge both from being taught and from building on what it knows and making new connections.

RankBrain mainly refines queries according to user searches and measures how users interact with the search results. Then it ranks the pages accordingly.

For example, you might search for “padmavat” in Google. Google contextualizes and personalizes the search engine results pages for your search term.

Here’s what happens when you search the keyword “masala chai.”

Say that the #1 result appeals to you. You click it, bounce back due to its content, click on the #4 result, and find that content worth reading.

So you stay longer on that site and check everything out.

RankBrain considers these metrics and gives the #4 result a ranking boost. It focuses mainly on the following factors:

• How long users stay on your web pages
• Click-through rate (the percentage of people who click on your search result)
• Whether people used complex long-tail search queries

7. User Experience (UX) for SEO

User experience will play a greater role in search rankings and will become even more important.

Here are some UX factors that affect rankings:

• Page loading speed
• Mobile responsiveness
• Quality, informative, and in-depth content
• User behavior and interaction with content
• Structure markups
• Site navigation
• Bounce rate
• Site security
• Optimization of text, images, and internal links

 8. Rise of Video and Image Search

Video and image searches (we can call them “visual search content”) take the user experience to the next level. We will see a huge growth in visual search content and should start creating and prioritizing it. Here are some visual content stats:

1. 37% of marketers said visual marketing was the most important form of content for their businesses. (Source)
2. 74% of social media marketers “use visual assets in their social media marketing.” (Source)

The following are types of awesome visual content you can use:

1. Data-driven visual content, which can be easily embedded in other sites
2. Infographics with relevant data
3. Gifographics
4. Videos embedded on your blog or page content
5. Screenshots

Conclusion

So these are the SEO trends that are continually changing. Feel free to share any other SEO trends we should consider for the coming year.

Don’t forget to incorporate featured snippets, rich content (such as videos), links, and UX into your strategy.

 

Featured Photo by Joseph Rosales

Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.—James Cash Penney, founder of JCPenney

The path to growth for startups and small businesses is not due to a singular business process or function.

Instead, businesses grow as a result of strong processes and functions working together to create an integrated, dynamic company.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy that startups and small businesses should invest in as a staple of their growth models.

A strong SEO strategy fuels business growth through increasing engagement, producing qualified leads, and driving conversions.

Like any other core business process or function, SEO comes at a cost. It entails highly complex and technical work.

In order to maintain an effective SEO strategy, a small business/startup needs to devote ample resources towards its success.

For many small businesses and startups, however, the money for bringing in external resources to help with SEO services is simply unavailable.

But if you have the guts and will to start your own business, you can handle SEO. There are critical, manageable SEO services that startups can carry out in-house.

Three SEO services that are particularly manageable in-house are local SEO optimization, content strategy, and social media.

Small businesses and startups should create and invest in an in-house SEO strategy.

This strategy should focus on these SEO services so that you can help your business grow.

This article explains the value of an SEO strategy. The post will outline how these three SEO services in particular help to fuel startup and small business growth by driving online exposure and engagement.

Understanding SEO and Its Value

To create and carry out an effective SEO strategy, businesses first need to fully understand what SEO is.

SEO is a blanket term that describes services and efforts designed to increase traffic to a website through organic search results.

The value of SEO for any company is based on the traffic that the top results of a given search query receive.

The higher your site places in search results, the more traffic comes to your site.

Increased traffic creates more leads and signals to Google that your site is a relevant and popular destination for a certain search topic.

This in turn further helps your site’s search ranking.

This positive feedback loop associated with SEO, while almost seeming idealistic, is exactly what a company should aim for with its SEO strategy.

Use In-House Resources for SEO Services

Google’s PageRank algorithm determines whether a certain key term earns top search results.

Google considers a bevy of factors about a site, including complex technical structure and content.

Most small businesses are unlikely to have the talent or expertise to carry out a comprehensive, technical SEO strategy.

However, growing companies that need help with SEO can refer to their most valuable asset: their employees.

There are simple, manageable SEO services you can perform in-house that will boost your revenue and expand your consumer base.

These strategies drive exposure, draw traffic to your site, and draw links back to your site.

There are three very manageable SEO services around which growing businesses should base an in-house strategy.

These are local SEO optimization, content strategy, and social media marketing.

1. Local SEO Optimization:

Take Advantage of Google My Business

One category of SEO services that almost every small business needs to focus on in-house is local SEO.

Local SEO services help your site appear among the top search results for target terms in your location.

Given the rising use of mobile search and location-based search queries, local SEO can make a big difference for a growing firm.

First and foremost, businesses need to claim their  Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) listings.

Find out how to claim, optimize and drive engagement in the video below:

Take Advantage of Other Quality Local Directories

In addition to Google, claim and optimize your listing on online local directories, such as Yext, Angie’s List, and Yellowpages.

Optimizing your listing means ensuring that key information any potential customer might want about your business is available.

Businesses should optimize their listings to the fullest extent possible.

For example, if a directory listing allows you to provide customer reviews and ratings for your company, allow the directories to display that info.

The more information you can provide to an online customer, the better.

Verify Your NAP is Identical Across All Business Listings

It is paramount that the information you list for your business is consistent across every listing you open, especially your name, address, and phone number (NAP).

It is an obvious benefit to provide accurate information to customers about your business.

But consistent information also helps Google accurately index key information about your business and avoids common local ranking issues.

Local directories provide huge potential for businesses that operate primarily within a single location, and most small businesses do.

These directories are relevant only to consumers of their local areas. So listing on these sites guarantees exposure to a key demographic—local consumers.

2. Content Strategy: Blogs and Article Marketing

Small businesses and startups can also turn to in-house teams to produce content for both on and off-site promotion efforts.

Google favors high-quality and relevant content when ranking for search terms.

Great content directly addresses searcher intent and answers user questions. Creating high-quality content is time-intensive.

However, your staff is the best resource to speak to your area of expertise in a unique way.

The strongest content strategy includes blogging on your own site and producing content to post and market on other sites.

Blogging

Curating a business blog is more than just putting words on paper. Thinking it is only that is a mistake many businesses make.

They know having a blog is important, but they fail to devote adequate resources to its upkeep.

Your content needs to be well-structured, high-quality and thought-provoking. If your content is not well-written or interesting, nobody will read it.

Producing inferior content makes blogging a total waste of time.

It’s also important to note the difference between having a company blog and curating a company blog.

You need to regularly post on your blog. If you are strapped for time, shoot for one post a month.

It’s not the end of the world if you miss a month or two, but consistency matters. The older content gets, the less relevant it becomes.

Article Marketing

The second aspect of content strategy small businesses should invest in is article marketing. [Not what we used to call article marketing.]

Produce articles to publish on other sites in order to draw links back to your site.

Use the same approach for article marketing that you do with your company blog.

Article marketing allows you to display your content to audiences who would otherwise be unfamiliar with your site or company.

3. Social Media

Perhaps the most manageable SEO effort for small businesses and startups to carry out is social media.

Social media creates potential for links back to your site, arguably the most important factor for determining search rankings.

Businesses can use social media to support and promote their content efforts. And Google often pulls social media posts for display in search results.

If your company does not currently use social media, start doing so immediately.

Active social media channels allow small businesses and startups to increase exposure and traffic to their sites.

This increased exposure sends positive signals to Google about the relevance of your site to a certain topic.

It also creates an opportunity to engage on a more granular level with target audiences.

That engagement in turn increases the chance those users will click through to your site.

Small Businesses Can Use SEO to Spur Growth

Small businesses and startups should invest resources in SEO in order to help business growth.

SEO helps companies achieve standards for business growth through engaging with target audiences through search.

This engagement produces more leads, drives more conversions, and ultimately boosts revenue.

A full-scale SEO strategy involves highly complex technical efforts. Most small businesses and startups cannot afford professional SEO services.

But they can look in-house to manage three SEO efforts—local SEO, content, and social media.

Together, these services create an SEO strategy that will enhance a company’s digital stature and drive awareness of its site.

There is certainly a time commitment associated with SEO.

But the returns and potential for growth companies gain make SEO an important business function that small businesses and startups should pursue.

Do you run an eCommerce store? Are you looking for ways to boost your online store sales?

Ranking better than your competitors on a search engine results page (SERP) is a must in order to clinch the market.

But what if you don’t know what will actually get you to the top of the SERPs?

Or what if you are still following old and slow-to-respond techniques that will get you nowhere near the top of the search rankings page?

As time has passed, proven SEO techniques have changed. Far better methods and guides have evolved in the market.

These techniques offer better results more speedily so that you can rank well.

In this article, you’ll discover five must-follow proven SEO techniques that work faster for your eCommerce website.

They will help you achieve better results than your competitors in a short time.

1. Complete Your SEO Audit for Your eCommerce Website

No website can rank well on a SERP unless you kick-start the site in the right way.

An SEO audit of your eCommerce site allows you to analyze the reasons behind low traffic count on your website.

You can also identify the actual reasons for your low sales.

Why is your website performance so important? A survey found that 79% of web shoppers who have trouble with website performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again.

Around 44% of them would tell a friend if they had a poor experience shopping online.

You can use auditing tools such as SEMrush and Seoptimer to identify critical errors on your website and find out how to avoid these errors.

Analyze each and every aspect of your website and its pages. Here are a few points you need to consider while doing an SEO audit:

1. Do all pages contain relevant and fully optimized meta tags?
2. Are all pages and their content optimized for your target keywords?
3. Do the URLs of all your pages work fine and follow search engine guidelines?
4. Do all your images contain alt tags (a must for eCommerce websites)?
5. Are you using links properly within your content?

2. SEO Optimized Landing Page

Now it’s time to optimize landing pages for your products. Creating an SEO optimized landing page is a must if you are looking to improve your sales and lead generation.

In short, the more and better-optimized landing pages you create for your users, the more traffic you’ll get. And the better your website sales will be.

Go the extra mile to create attractive landing pages. You can drive traffic through press releases, SEO link building, and other forms of marketing.

Here’s how to perfectly optimize an eCommerce landing page.

Here are some key factors that play a pivotal role in strong landing pages:

1. Informative title tags (use your primary keyword)
2. Useful and informative product descriptions
3. Appealing calls-to-action, such as to sign up for your product or service
4. Providing no option for navigation (if you are looking for users to stay on your page!)

3. Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly

Mobile friendliness plays a huge role when it comes to eCommerce websites.

Whether or not you get a lot of traffic and sales depends on how your website is behaving on mobile.

As per data released, more than 60% of searches are now performed on mobile.

Last year, Google introduced an update to its search algorithm that boosts the organic search traffic of mobile responsive websites.

Here are some key elements you need to evaluate during your mobile responsiveness check:

1. Are your products displayed properly on mobile?
2. Is your navigation displaying properly and working fine?
3. Is your method of payment working ok on mobile?
4. Does your content display in the right order?
5. Are your website and web pages mobile friendly? Check them here.

4. Organize Products Properly

If you are seriously looking to establish a brand, you need to do your research well and be thorough as you work on your website.

You need to categorize your products properly and have good website navigation so that users know where they are.

Keep your website structure simple. Make it easy for your users and search engines to find the pages on your site.

Organizing all your products by category is highly important for SEO purposes and the user experience. Note the architecture of the PetSmart website.

Let’s say you want to shop food for your cat. You go to the homepage and click “shop by pet” and select cat from a drop-down menu.

Then click “Food and Treats.”

Now you have a list of their products. No product is more than three clicks away from the homepage on the PetSmart site.

5. Integrate Your Blog with Your Website

Integrating your blog with your website can offer you a great chance to beat out your competitors in the eCommerce race.

With a blog, you can better connect with your target audience and can also keep informing your readers about your current and incoming products.

At the same time, the periodic addition of relevant pages on your website will allow it to appear high on the SERPs and offer a better chance to grab the attention of searchers.

With the right approach to your blog, you can win half the battle against your competitors.

Strategize Proven SEO Techniques for Your eCommerce Store

A successful eCommerce model depends on how you devise your strategy for promoting your website.

At regular intervals, you need to analyze, track, and conduct deep research on your competitors’ activities in order to remain ahead of your rivals.

Which of these proven SEO techniques will you use? Do you want to share with us below in the comments?

 

Photo by Štefan Štefančík