For SMEs who are not technically inclined, search engine optimization can be a daunting task, and most experts say to go for quality over quantity.
Your website may run like the wind and may be slick, beautiful and have great user experience, but this means nothing unless you have a strong approach to search engine optimization (SEO), as it will be virtually useless, as no one will be able to find it.
A website with good SEO will rank higher than those who don’t on search engine results. For the small businesses who do not have the technological know-how on how to improve rankings, SEO can seem a daunting task to get right in the first time. But not having the tools and techniques understood doesn’t mean that a website owner cannot get their website ranking high.
Some experts such as Ross Dempsey, head of marketing agency, Digital Impact says start things out simple. Begin with “on-page SEO”, start getting things right on the web page which will be accessed by search engines and audiences who look to understand what the web page is all about. Getting this right is the first step in making the website rank higher in search engine results.
First thing is to get the title of the web page right, as this is the headlines which audiences will see on search engine result pages to accurately describe what it is about. Secondly, keep the web page URL short and punchy. And finally use the search engine search term which is being entered by users in the first 100 words of the page.
But watch for those keywords. Trying to rank for competitive keywords can be a lost cause for most SMEs. “if you are a small insurance company, trying to rank nationally for “Car insurance” is not something you will looking forward too. There are enormous companies spending a ton of money there. For smaller players, it’s a losing battle.”
But instead, focus on keyword terms which have less competition. These could include more specific and longer terms such as “car insurance breakdown cover,” for example.
Paddy Moogan, a co-founder of a digital advertising firm, Aira says that creating content that draws a lot of links from other websites is one of the easiest ways to achieve a better SEO score. The more other websites link to your content- the more the reputation of your website improves in the eyes of Google, and hence your SEO ranking will most probably increase and improve.
The focus should be on the quality and relevance of the website which is linking to your content. If your website is for plumbers and you are getting links from sport nutrition blogs then this could be misconstrued as manipulation of links and could more likely harm your ranking than improve it.
To consider the efforts of your SEO, consider using tools such as Google Analytics to draw inferences about your traffic and also Google Search Console to see the keywords that people are using to find your website.
The bottom line is that it is all about the customer. Even if you concentrate on the efforts of SEO do not forget to give people a great experience once they arrive at your website.