SEO advice for business owners - Be your own customer

In today's digital landscape, achieving a strong online presence is crucial for business success. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) plays a pivotal role in enhancing your website's visibility on search engines, driving organic traffic, and attracting potential customers. For business owners, understanding and implementing effective SEO strategies can significantly impact growth and competitiveness.

The rules for SEO aren’t hard or a dark art as some consultants would have you believe. Google wants good relevant content in front of people searching and always has so it can sell more advertising. By following the rules you can increase your chances of getting more targeted leads. And if you need more hands on help then we’re here to help and happy to provide a free informal SEO consultation.

The great thing about SEO is that after you have established the process then it looks after itself. Every time you write content, you follow the rules and integrate basic SEO concepts into every touch point in your website so it becomes second nature. By being aware of how search engines and AI chatbots index pages, you can get more targeted traffic to your page. As well as writing informing engaging copy you need to be aware of what users are searching for and how search engines view the importance of your page for your target audience.

Follow these SEO rules to start your journey to website leads:

Understand your customers, what are they searching for?

Identify the key phrases. Very often they are not what you think they are, determine the variations, the niches, the specifics of how people search for what you are offering. Many search phrases are very competitive and will be too hard for you to achieve prominent results for, so target more carefully:

1. If you are location based, always include this in your search terms

2. Focus on the specifics of what you offer - fewer people will be looking but search engines like focused content and will rank you accordingly. These are called the "long tail" key search phrases

   
   

Implement your key phrases appropriately

Once you know how your prospective customers are searching for your services or products it's time to match your web pages to their needs:

1. Title Tags & Meta Descriptions: Craft compelling, keyword-rich titles and descriptions that accurately reflect the page's content

2. Header Tags (H1, H2, H3): Structure content clearly with relevant keywords.

3. Internal Linking: Link between relevant pages on your website to improve navigation and SEO.

4. Image Optimisation: Use descriptive Alt Tags for images and ensure your images are named using key phrases

Develop High-Quality, Relevant Content

Content is at the heart of SEO:​

• Blogging: Regularly publish informative articles that address your audience's questions and pain points.

• Multimedia: Incorporate videos, infographics, and podcasts to cater to diverse content preferences based upon your capacity. AI tools now can help create generative content very quickly so explore these tools

• Content Updates: Regularly refresh existing content to maintain its relevance and accuracy

Write for your prospects

Always talk to your prospects on your website, don't go straight into a sale; meet their needs first:

1. Target your content around what you do but always use the key phrases they are searching with

2. optimise individual pages, so ensure your pages are optimised around a few related key phrases

3. People like linked content through a site as do search engines. So link between pages to related content, but use the key phrase for the landing page you are linking to. For example, rather than use "More information" or "click here" use "call your local friendly Ipswich plumber for a prompt response"

4. Always provide strong calls to action. e.g.

   1. click here for a call back

   2. get a quote now

   3. see what our customers say v

Go to where you customers are

Leverage local SEO. Where are local people going to find businesses like yours online? Use all online resources as this increases the places where people may find you but also provides you with those all important links back to your site:

1. Most importantly create a google business profile where people can find you on google maps and search results

2. Add your details and web links to local directories and relevant trade directories

   
   

Enhance User Experience (UX)

A positive user experience can lead to higher engagement and better rankings:​

• Mobile Responsiveness: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as a significant portion of users access sites via mobile devices

• Page Load Speed: Optimise images, leverage browser caching, and minimize code to improve loading times​

• Clear Navigation: Design intuitive menus and internal linking structures to help users find information easily

Utilize Analytics to Monitor Performance

Regularly analyse your website's performance to identify areas for improvement:​

• Google Analytics: Track user behaviour, traffic sources, and conversion rates.

• Google Search Console: Monitor search performance and identify any technical issues.​

• Regular Audits: Conduct SEO audits to ensure your strategies align with current best practices

  
  

Backlinks

This is where it starts to get tricky. Search engines love to know that you are well respected within your sector, and one of the key ways they determine this is through the "Trust Score". This is largely determined by how many QUALITY links you have to your site and not quantity. Quality is defined by relevance to your sector and how well valued they are. Lots of paid links or poor quality sits will not help. the best way to get good links is to talk to suppliers, customers and when you go to networking events. Help each other.

Be your own customer

My final piece of advice is remember you're a customer too and you use search engines. Make the experience of finding and navigating your website the one you would like to have. As much as you would like to sing the virtues of what you offer, people want to see what they've searched for immediately they land on the page and make a decision within seconds whether they stay and engage with your site or leave.