Getting to and staying at or near the top of Google search results under relevant keywords is a never-ending battle. It’s a critical one, though, if you want to maximize the amount and quality of traffic into your website. The SEO tips below should help you get more traffic to your site, which gives you more opportunities to convert visitors into leads and customers.
Produce More Content
If your website doesn’t have a blog, start one immediately. If you only produce content for it on an irregular or infrequent basis, start getting more regular and frequent with blog and Guest post.
More content enables you to increase the variety of keywords you can focus on and rank under. You’ll have a greater opportunity to have relevant answers to questions people are asking online. Make sure it is useful content that provides value to the reader. This will help you stay uppermost on their minds when they look for someone from which to buy products or services that are related to the content.
Optimize for Featured Snippets
These can increase your visibility on the front page of search results. You have almost certainly seen featured snippets when doing a search for a product, service or simply an answer to a question. Often, above the organic search results, you will see a box containing a partial snippet from a website that answers your question. It will also have a link below it that will take you to the website.
Getting this prime real estate on Google can be great for your search traffic volume. In attempting to get your website content in one of these featured snippets, you should try:
- Tailoring them toward question-related searches.
- Focusing on keywords that already rank on the first page of Google.
- Keeping the wording to about 40 to 60 words.
- Using title tags for the keywords.
Use Long-Tail Keywords
Competition is too intense under general keywords for almost any type of product or service that you sell. If you sell money belts, for example, the keyword “money belts” will be very hard to rank highly under since literally every other seller of such an item will be trying to do so as well. Presuming you have such a product, you would have much better luck striving for the top of Google under “black leather money belt.” Your chances would be even better with “black leather money belt zipper pocket.” These longer more specific keywords may get fewer searches, but they’ll also have fewer competitors.
Use Guest Posts to Proactively Build Backlinks
If you don’t have plenty of high-quality backlinks to your website, you are inhibiting its ability to rank well on search engines. These are simply links that appear on another website that send people to yours when they click on it. A business listing in a local online directory in your area that has a link to a page on your website is an example of this. You want to write guest posts for sites that have a lot of traffic and that revolve around a subject that’s related to what you sell. It will also be of benefit if the website is considered very reputable since this helps build your authority and credibility in your field, which search engines like to see.
Don’t Neglect Local SEO
Depending on the type of business you run, you may not have the luxury of neglecting local SEO. Local service businesses need a constant flow of traffic from people in their geographic area to survive. If you’re a plumber, dentist or landscaper in Boise, Idaho, it’s not going to help you to get calls from people in Richmond, Virginia.
Even if your business is not dependent on local customers for survival, you should still try to rank highly under searches in your local area. You might have an online e-commerce website selling merchandise around the country that you ship out to people. Some people like the idea of helping local businesses as a way to support their community. Let them know that there is someone in their city or county that sells what they want.
You can do this by setting up a Google My Business page. This will enhance the chances of your company popping up in a local search for goods that you sell. This is also how you get a Google Maps listing, so people can come to you if you offer local pickup of your merchandise. You can also regularly blog about news or events in your locality. Getting customers in your area to leave reviews will also improve local visibility and boost your traffic.
