If you are a business owner your New Year’s resolution is pretty simple to make. Your goal should be to grow your business in 2020. Free SEO tips can help you to stick to your New Year’s resolution.
While there are a lot of things that are important to growing your business like marketing funding, arranging for employee benefits, hiring a business attorney, finding the financing you need with a small business loan, and more, free SEO tips are well, FREE. There are so many things that you have to invest in for your business, it is nice when something that does not cost you anything comes along. SEO can have a profound influence on the growth of your business.
There is always so much chatter about SEO. Search engine optimization this and that is always a hot topic in marketing. You may be tired of hearing about it, but don’t let the oversaturation shut you down. Don’t kid yourself, premium SEO is as important today as it was when the term was first coined in 1997.
It seems incredible today that there was even marketing before the first utterance of search engine optimization was heard. It is one of the most commonly used acronyms in the business marketing world today, if not the most used.
The real deal with search engine optimization (SEO) is without it, you have a website that virtually no one will ever visit. When a user plugs in a search term, the search engines in a nanosecond find potential matches among the trillion or so websites. With SEO that is customized to your website, the search engines have a way to find your website.
You hear so much about SEO because it is one of the most important keys to successfully marketing your business online. Free SEO tips can help you to step up your SEO game this year and get that traffic flowing.
There is a lot for you to do from monthly accounting reports to what is hanging on your office walls, but you need to make time for what is happening with your SEO. Fine-tuning your SEO game this year can really make a difference in how your business thrives and grows.
As a business owner your goal is to find new customers, clients, and financing. Driving traffic to your website is a step in the process, but the ultimate goal is setting your business up to make those conversions. Conversions in the realm of the online community is when a visitor to your website takes the next step so that you can work your magic.
In other words, driving traffic is great, but you have to grab their attention when they reach your website and then get them to either order something from your online store or pick up the phone and contact you.
SEO content plays a big part in turning visitors into customers. One of the most important things your SEO can do is to get people interested in what you are selling. Whether you are selling a service or products, premium SEO is vital in making that sale.
Let’s Move On With Those Free SEO Tips
Now you should have a good understanding of why you are going to continue to hear about SEO and how important it is to your business. Let’s get to those free SEO tips to help improve your online presence and conversions.
Some of the free SEO tips focus on what you should NOT do:
- Focus content solely on keyword stuffing
- Post outdated content
- Duplicate content or copy content from other websites
- Depend on short article content
Not all free SEO tips are geared at telling you what works, some of these free SEO tips are geared at letting you know what does not work anymore. Some of the things that people are doing with their SEO used to work but no longer work today. It is time to change things up if you are doing any of the above.
Keyword Stuffing is a Definite No
You likely know that the foundation to SEO content is the keywords that people are most likely to use in their search for your business. For example, let’s say you sell shoes, some of the keywords that may be generated for your content are “shoes for sale” “sell shoes” or “shoes for sale nearby”. Or, if you’re a business attorney you will see searches related to the specific services you offer. The key is to get that language on your site.
There is a balance of using keywords in the content. Overs stuffed content can actually get your page demoted in the rankings. Google (one of the biggest search engines) does not like keyword stuffing so much that they will demote the ranking of your page. In extreme cases, Google will boot your page altogether from the ranking (SERP).
Be very careful of how many times keywords appear in your content. Of course, there is also the fact that humans will be reading your content, and keyword stuffing is not really conducive to entertaining humans. It is redundant and will lose visitor’s interest quickly. Stay in the realm of one to three percent for your keywords.
Outdated Content Can Also Get Your Site Demoted
Do yourself a favor this year and the first week of the year go through your website and just can anything that is outdated or that has misinformation. Just get rid of it. Outdated content can get you placed low in the rankings. It is a simple fix to rid your site of trash, just do it.
One of the things you should never ever do is copy content from another website, it can open a can of worms for you that can be very hard to close back up. It is not only unethical to claim other content as your own, but it can also put you in legal hot water if the content is copyrighted.
How Long is Your Content?
There was a time not too long ago when you could produce content that was around 250 words and get ranked with it. Today, that is not going to put you on the map. Your content at a minimum should be around 350 words to 1500 words optimally.
Don’t short change yourself with short content. Longer content ranks higher and it has a chance of being circulated more.
Other Free SEO Tips No-No’s
Avoid junk content. That is content that is auto-generated, without substance, and created by a bot. It is important that your SEO content is not only getting the attention of the search engines but that it is also engaging. You want your content to be rich and a voice for your business, stay away from auto-generated content.
Free SEO Tips For What You Should Do
We got all the things that you should not do when it comes to SEO out of the way, now here are the things that you should do:
- User header tags
- Optimize for local searches
- Optimize for voice searches
- Fix broken links, get more back links,
Header tags can be very useful for SEO content. It makes your content easier to read for users and there is an indication that it actually makes it easier for search engines to find the content. H1, H2 tags are easy to insert and a simple step you can take in beefing up your SEO content to get recognized.
Optimize For Conversions with CRO
CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimization, is the practice of (you guessed it) optimizing your site for conversions.
A great way to get started optimizing your site for conversions is to use a heatmap to see how users are interacting with it. This data will allow you to adjust your page’s layout so that the call-to-action is seen better or the phone number gets viewed more easily, which in turn will nudge people towards calling or reaching out.
Another great way to improve your site’s conversion rate is to use “social proof.” In other words, offer evidence that others are not only using your products and services but that they’re recommending it. Adding reviews and badges will help convince potential customers that you’re worth doing business with because it’ll show you’ve satisfied other customers before.
Local Searches
There are plenty of statistics that support the idea that you should be focusing on local search optimization for your SEO, the most astounding is the local SEO searches convert 80% of the time. That is a boat load of conversions that no business can afford to miss out on.
Did you know that 46% of all Google searches are to find local businesses? If even a small fraction of those users are looking for your type of business that can translate into hundreds of searches every week.
One of the most compelling reasons your SEO should be focused on local searches is because searches that have included the term “near me” as in “find a shoe store near me” have increased by 500% in the last 3 years.
Making local SEO a priority is important because your competitors are very likely making it their priority. Add this to your list of free SEO tips to follow for 2020.
Voice Searches
Are you optimizing for voice searches? You should be. It is estimated that 65% of users between the ages of 25-49 use their voice-enabled device (smartphone typically) to search for products, services, and local businesses at least once a day.
In all 71% of people surveyed that use a voice-activated device to find products, service, and local businesses report that they will start using the feature more. Getting found now means using SEO that is designed around voice searches.
It can be a little tricky to prepare content for voice search recognition because of semantics, local jargon, and other factors. If you feel like this is out of your scope, hire someone to do it for you. It is that important, and it is worth investing in.
Fix Your Links and Get More Back Links
Broken links are bad for business. Having strong back links and fully functional links is a way to shore up the authority of your website. Getting a 404 response really tampers with the user’s experience and can affect your website’s authority.
Fix links that are not working right or just remove them. It is better to have fewer working links than it is to have a large number of non-working links. Remember while all these great free SEO tips will come in handy, never overlook what your website is like for the user.
These free SEO tips are relevant to the results that you will get with your SEO but are not SEO tips directly. Let’s talk about the condition of your website. How are things looking? How are things working? Is your site have a responsive website design?
Your website is the backbone of your SEO. If your website needs some updating to improve the user experience you need to go ahead and get that done. The fact is no matter how fine-tuned your SEO campaign is if your website is just not presenting the way it should, you are wasting your time. Remember SEO content gets them to your website and may even engage them, but if your site is not highly functional visitors will leave.
To get all the benefits of SEO your website has to be up to date, functioning great, and looking like a place where people want to visit for a little while. While you are reviewing your website look for security issues if you notice any problems consider speaking to a cyber security consulting firm that can help you to protect your website better.
Building your online presence is a lot like building a brick and mortar business. It happens in layers. Your website Is the building and your SEO content is the signage, your business card, the first handshake, and the doorway into the building. When you receive your first business loan your first investment should be in a quality website.
Every part has to do its job for your business to succeed. Follow the free SEO tips for the do’s and don’ts, make sure your website is ready for the New Year and then get prepared to meet the higher demand for your service and products this year.
