Think of them as reputation builders
SEO Tip #1: Discover your target keywords
First and foremost, think about the keywords people use to find your products and/or services on Google. Keywords can be related to navigation, information or transactions. Let’s take the example of a fictitious pet grooming service, “Poils Canins”, to show the difference between these types of keywords.
Navigation
The search term “Poils Canins” is a navigation search. This is a navigation search when someone already knows your brand name and is looking for it to get to your website.
Information search
An informational search is a search for information or advice. For example, “how to groom my dachshund” is an informational search.
Transactional
Finally, a transactional searcher is someone who is ready to buy a service or good. The query “book a pet groomer near me” corresponds to a person ready to make an appointment.
With this in mind, make a list of keyword phrases that make sense for your business, then consider which ones would be most beneficial to target in your SEO strategy. You’ll want to focus on keywords that are directly related to your product or service, have adequate search volume and aren’t too competitive to rank for.
SEO tip #2: Create landing pages for each keyword.
Now that you have a list of your most important keywords, it’s time to develop pages for them. Having a specific page for each of your search terms is useful for SEO, as Google tries to match the searcher’s intent with the content as closely as possible.
So, by having quality content for each of your most important search terms , you’re more likely to rank for those search terms in Google.
Using the example of “Canine Hair”, let’s say we wanted to target the following keywords:
- Pet grooming
- Dog grooming
- Poodle grooming
- Dachshund grooming
By having a page on each of these services, you provide useful content to both searchers and search engines, which can help you get to the top of search results.
SEO tip #3: use keywords in your URL, metadata and page header.
When Google crawls a page on your website, it examines certain HTML elements to determine what the page is about. These include the URL, metadata and page title.
Let’s say our hypothetical company owns the domain http://PoilsCanins.com/. Our page on poodle grooming should contain the keyword in the URL.
It might look something like this:
http://PoilsCanins.com/service/PoilsCanins.
It’s also important to include your keyword in the title tag and meta-description. These are the elements that appear in Google’s search results in the form of a blue link and a text description of a site. By including your keywords in these descriptions, you help users and search engines know what to expect when they click on the page.
For example, my poodle grooming page might contain the following metadata;
Title tag: Poodle grooming services – Poils Canins
Meta Description: Poils Canins offers poodle grooming services for standard poodles, miniature poodles and poodle mixes. Learn more about our poodle grooming services.
Finally, include the keyword in the page header. By adding a title containing the keyword, you show what the page is about.
SEO Tip #4: Create useful and valuable content
Make sure the content you write for your website is useful, well-written and attractive. Quality content is the most important part of SEO.
Thin, sloppy content written purely for SEO purposes won’t produce good results, because it’s not what web users are looking for. They want to find content that meets their needs and answers their questions, which they generally won’t find on a 200-word, keyword-packed landing page.
Take the time to create quality, relevant and useful content. Include videos, links and other types of content that make your landing pages a complete source of information.
This type of content will naturally earn inbound links, which are an important ranking factor.
SEO tip n°5: include calls to action on informative landing pages.
While quality content is the most important part of a landing or service page, you also need a call to action that’s worth clicking on. Make the next steps clear to visitors and encourage them to take the desired action on your site.
For example, you can place a call to action at the end of your blog posts offering a promotion, and link to a contact form, service page or product page. If the quality of the content is to encourage new users to visit your site, the CTA will facilitate their conversion.
SEO Tip #6: Add a video
Integrating a video on your page, whether produced in-house or sourced from Youtube, can help improve your page’s SEO by keeping visitors interested. Videos can help to better explain the subject of the page, and keep visitors on the page longer.
SEO Tip 7: Update your content
Evergreen” pages are those that shouldn’t change too much over time, as their content is not time-sensitive. Although this type of article is excellent for SEO, be sure to update them regularly. Google values fresh content. So revisit your evergreen content every year to make sure it’s up to date.
This can be as simple as adding new updates, new images or a new video to the page to keep it fresh.
SEO tip #8: Create an internal link architecture
Internal links are those that connect the pages of your website. These are usually done via navigation links or in-text links that point from one page to another on your site.
Links are important for SEO, because they tell Google which pages are the most important. They can also help site visitors navigate your site more easily and find your most valuable content.
For example, let’s say Poils Canins has a main page on grooming services that lists all the prices and details of the various services. The fact that each individual service page (such as http://PoilsCanins.com/service/Poils-Canins) links back to this main page is useful because it directs site visitors, and Google, to important information.
Make sure your link architecture is consistent – using too many links when it’s not appropriate can look spammy and can even damage your website visitors‘ experience.
SEO tip #9: Add key pages to your navigation
In addition to your internal link architecture, make sure your website navigation includes your most important pages. In general, the most important pages are those providing information about your products and services. Make sure site visitors can learn more about your brand by including them in the navigation.
Another page to include in the navigation is a contact page where visitors can send an e-mail, submit a form or find contact information such as your company’s address and phone number. The easier it is for visitors to make a purchase or contact your company, the greater the chances of conversion.
SEO Tip #10: Try paid advertising
Setting up targeted paid advertising campaigns can help attract more visitors to your valuable content and get your website off the ground quickly. SEO takes time to set up, so complementing it with a paid campaign can help you attract new visitors to your site and draw attention to your content.
By using informative long-tail search terms in Google Ads, you can attract relevant users to your website and save on your average cost per click.
By drawing attention to your content, you increase your chances of getting backlinks and social shares. Although you may be reluctant to pay for visitors, an optimized paid campaign can boost your SEO efforts and attract interested users to your website.
It’s also a good idea to set up a remarketing tag on your website to continue building brand awareness. By branding your visitors and showing them remarketing ads, you’ll stay in their minds, encouraging conversions.
SEO tip #11: Get backlinks
Backlinks are links pointing to your website from another site on the Web. For example, if another site presents your products or services in a blog post, it will link to the corresponding page on your site.
Backlinks are an important part of SEO ranking. Think of them as reputation builders. The more backlinks you have to your website from other trustworthy, high-authority websites, the more confidence search engines will have in your website and its content.
Returning to our content tip, the only way to get these kinds of natural backlinks is to create content that’s worth sharing and linking to.
Focus first on creating quality content, then promote it via social media or a press release to draw attention to it.
