1. Onsite Optimization
If you want to rank a page on your website, it needs to be appropriately optimized for the keyword you are targeting. Ideally, you would have a unique landing page for each individual keyword you wanted to rank for. We use this strategy is because it allows you to make each page specifically about the product or service you are targeting. We have plenty of detailed posts about ranking local businesses online. For this list, we won’t get into those details, but you can find them on other local SEO resources we have developed. Onsite optimization includes the content on the user-facing side and the meta-information on the backend that the bots crawl and index. Understanding how to use these two areas of onsite optimization will make ranking for your keywords much more manageable. Using these white hat techniques are considered best practice. These techniques never get you penalized by Google and improve the overall user experience when visitors land on your website. It consists of proper keyword research, keyword density, LSI language, and optimized media to create the perfect resource. You need to understand that content is King, and Google values that. Google wants its users to find the information they are looking for and then some, so provide value onsite so that everyone wins. An oldie, but a goodie, make sure you have an SSL certificate and that your site is secure.
2. Offsite Optimization
After you have adequately optimized your landing page, you need to spread the news by creating a buzz around your page on other platforms or “offsite.” To do this, you can start by sharing your content on social media and then begin link outreach. Link outreach is the process of contacting other site owners and asking them to reference your content within theirs. This is standard practice, and when done with proper research and technique, you can provide your website with an incredible boost in rankings.
3. Broaden Your Online Footprint
Think of Google as an Alaskan photographer. When searching for wildlife to photograph, a tracker is often looking for the largest footprint. This footprint is a signal to the tracker that the animal is near and adequate enough to photograph. As Google crawls the web, it also recognizes footprints. Think about it, if you looked for an SEO agency in Phoenix and found a website that had a landing page but no other business profiles, would you find it trustworthy? Or would you prefer a site that had social media profiles, content, directory listings, and reviews? Google is looking for the same signals, and by creating and connecting these properties, you can broaden your online footprint, making you an authority in your local market for your products and services. Create business profiles on the most popular social media platforms and business citations in the more popular directories. Ensure that the name, address, and phone numbers are consistent with the information listed on your Google My Business profile.
4. Understand The Google Algorithm
There is no doubt that Google keeps on changing its algorithms. They never announce any change that is going to be made until after the update has been deployed. These updates can leave site owners in a panic, wondering what happened to their rankings. These algorithmic updates can also put SEOs in a bit of a pinch. As client rankings drop, it’s their job to figure out how to recover those rankings as soon as possible. Because of this, it’s important to monitor your traffic and rankings using Google Analytics and search console. You should also be monitoring your brand for mentions to prevent any harmful content from being published and distributed. So, do yourself a favor and read up on the Google algorithm, the different updates that have happened over the years, and the blog posts related to the recovery from those updates. Knowledge is power, and the more you know about Google’s search engine, the more efficient you can rank your business’s website.
5. Create Links To Your Website
To understand backlinks better, you should research paid guest posts and know how it works before jumping into a backlink building campaign. This can quickly become the most significant part of an SEO strategy, and at the same time, if not done right, it can cause the most problems. There are many types of backlinks, anchors, and strategies that accompany them. Multi-tier linking stacks and redirects are some other techniques to consider when creating your campaign. Still, if you have never deployed a link building campaign, we suggest hiring someone with experience to avoid unwanted problems. Creating internal links also applies here, as you can link from one internal page to another. The value here is that I can pass metrics and referral traffic from this page, over to my page about marketing for construction contractors. Reciprocal link building is another option, try reaching out to other local businesses and finding creative ways to exchange links from one site to another. By creating a community with other business owners, you can lean on each other for these resources to help make digital marketing for small Arizona businesses more affordable and effective.
6. Structured Data
Structured data is especially important for local SEO. Adding structured data to your website will help you control what people see when they find your business in the search engines and social media platforms. It also allows you to connect all your branded properties so that the Google bot knows which business profiles are yours. There are also opportunities to add location information and review schema, so reviews show in Google search. These SEO strategies help with conversion and rankings and should be included with your SEO campaign.
7. Mobile Optimization
If you are reading this article, then you have probably been doing your research and understand the importance of mobile-friendly optimization. Google announced that they were going to credit mobile-friendly websites some time ago over those that were not. This is because search from mobile devices continues to increase, and those experiences need to be fast and friendly, or users won’t come back. Mobile-friendly optimization consists of many variables, but most commonly, the content needs to fit correctly on hand-held devices, and site speed needs to accommodate mobile search. If you can nail those two elements, you are halfway to the promised land.
8. Sitemaps And Robot TXT Files
It would be best if you also did further research on this, but know that it is a vital SEO variable that can really contribute to your rankings. When the search engine bots crawl your website, the sitemap tells them where your important pages are so that they can crawl and index them. Make sure your sitemap is set up correctly, and your Robot txt file includes the sitemap information. You can find out more about that on the web.
Conclusion
These are 8 SEO strategies that will help you get your website up and running as soon as possible. If you don’t wish to put in the work, contact us for a free SEO audit. All of these should be considered when planning out your optimization campaign. While this is not an end-all list for optimizing your website for search, it’s enough to get you started and to rank for longer-tail keyword variations of your primary keywords. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, especially for your backlink building strategies; those should be drip-fed overtime, not rushed. Follow these steps, and you will rank your website. Be aware that when your site ranks, the calls will start coming in, so make sure you are prepared. Invest in a quality CRM to manage those leads, and consider using a virtual call center like https://nexa.com/ to handle that influx of inbound calls for you. For agencies looking for SEO tips, or SEO fulfillment services, contact us to learn more about the white label SEO services we provide for other agencies.
