As an entrepreneur, you know that visibility is an important aspect of your success. After all, how can people support your business as a consumer if they don’t know you exist?
Gaining organic visibility and traction does not always come easy, but utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been a proven marketing strategy to get your business in front of the eyes of more potential customers.
In this blog post, we will break down the concept of SEO for you and explain the power of SEO for the visibility of your business.
What Is SEO and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?
SEO is a marketing technique that requires you to tailor your website and online content to “rank” higher in search engine results pages. This would look like being on the first page of Google when someone types in a keyword or phrase they are searching for.
For example, if you are a life coach, and someone uses Google to type “life coaches,” and your website appears on the first page, SEO is working in your favor.
You want your website to appear at the top of the results. After all, let’s be real: Do you scroll to the bottom of the page to get the answer you want on Google or usually click on the first few results? That is why you want your website to rank high on the first page. The higher your website appears as a search result, the more likely people will click on it. The higher your website ranks, the more visible you are to potential customers.
With Google processing over 99,000 searches every single second, shifting your focus to SEO benefits your business.
SEO Leads to More Organic Traffic to Your Website
When you optimize your website for search engines, you'll naturally attract more traffic to your site. Search engines may take a while to recognize your website and niche as an expert in the field or a reliable website on the topic. Once it does, it's almost like the marketing is doing itself! The number of sessions and visitors visiting your website daily will increase. This increased traffic can result in more leads and sales for your business.
You’re Likely to Increase Your Brand Awareness
One of the greatest powers of SEO is the increase in brand awareness. People are more likely to remember and recognize your brand when they see it at the top of search results. Even if someone lands on your website from a search engine and does not end up being a customer, they can pass your information on to individuals within their network.
Brand awareness is often the first to drive performance-marketing goals, like leads and sales. Targeting and attracting the right audience increases your conversion rate of sales. As we love to say, when people know about your brand, they can support it.
It Gives You Authority in Your Niche
The more you write about a topic, which is often your niche, the more search engines will recognize you as an authority. This will help you to rank higher in search engines. When people see that your website consistently appears at the top of search results, they'll be more likely to trust your brand and seek your expertise.
This is not only useful for obtaining potential clients but for other opportunities as well. You never know where that next speaking gig or partnership opportunity might come from. Someone is always watching and looking for expertise in every niche.
Actionable Tips for Improving Your SEO
Now you know that SEO is where you can direct your focus to benefit from the power of SEO, but what exactly do you do next to start seeing results?
Use relevant keywords that people are searching for in search engines
To use SEO to your advantage, you want to make sure that your content is catering to a need that your ideal target audience has. Your content should address a common topic or issue people are searching for online. You can use platforms like Keysearch and even Pinterest to see what common phrases and keywords are being searched the most. The more people use search engines to obtain information on a particular topic, the more your content will likely be a top source. That is the importance of tailoring your content to meet the needs of your niche.
Sign up for Google Search Console to see how your website is performing
If you haven’t already, sign up for Google Search Console. This platform lets you see which queries (searches on Google) bring people directly to your website. This is helpful because you know what people are searching for and can create even more content on that topic.
The platform also allows you to monitor your website’s performance on Google search results pages and see how close you are to reaching the first page.
The information and data from Google Search Console can help you see what content is performing well. From there, you can use this information to optimize the rest of your content and rank on Google.
Use the proper headings and formatting within your blog posts
The way you label your content on your website matters to search engines. Depending on the platform your website is being hosted on, you should have the option to use “tags” like Heading 1 (H1), Heading 2 (H2), Heading 3 (H3), and Heading 4 (H4).
Heading 1 is usually used for the title of the blog post.
Heading 2 is for the main subheading(s) throughout the post.
Heading 3 is the tag that you would use for sub-topics within a Heading 2 section.
Heading 4 is the tag you can use for a sub-topic for a Heading 3 topic.
It is common to use Headings 1-3 in most blog posts, but using tags helps search engines better understand how your content is constructed to rank it appropriately.
Using the proper headings helps to structure your site and make it more user-friendly. Most importantly, the use of headings allows Google to digest your content so you can reap the benefits of SEO.
Finally
SEO is rewarding as an entrepreneur, but learning and utilizing SEO effectively takes time. Incorporating the tips we outlined above over a long period will help you see sustainable results. By optimizing your website and creating high-quality, valuable content, you can attract more traffic and continue to build your brand online.
You may begin to rank on search engine pages next month or in the next six months. When you start seeing results is not up to you, but the steps you choose to take moving forward to master SEO are in your full control, which is the beauty of this marketing technique.
Here at Optimized Reality, we love using data to develop marketing strategies for brands and have seen time and time again that the numbers do not lie when it comes to SEO!
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