SEO in 2015 is a whole lot different than what it was few years ago. We have seen drastic changes in how people perceive SEO and go about optimizing their website to rank it higher on SERPS. Thanks to Google`s series of updates in the name of different versions of Penguin, Panda & Hummingbirds, most of the techniques that were the backbone of any SEO campaign few years back are totally irrelevant now, and would do your website more harm than good.
This is exactly why as a SEO professional or an online business owner, you need to continuously keep updating yourself with the latest happenings in SEO industry and finding out what works during that specific time period. After so many Google updates, in last 2 years, we did a thorough research on 100s of Domains and came up with this brief list of 7 SEO Tips, that every small business should be aware of if they want to succeed in SEO and protect themselves from any possible penalty by Google in near future.
Content Is Indeed the King of SEO
Content on your website needs to be fresh, relevant, engaging and completely unique both in the eyes of Google and your users. Duplicate or thin content is not going to cut it anymore in SEO as well as in overall Online Marketing strategy. So make sure you invest good bit of time and money on content of your website and make it as relevant and filled with fruitful information as possible.
Start a Blog
I can’t believe how many businesses are doing it wrong, and missing out on a fantastic opportunity to rank higher on SERPs. Having a constantly updated blog along with your website, can make search bot visit your website more often, which will increase your chances of being considered by Google for ranking high in SERPs. Hence it is almost a MUST to have a blog attached to your website and post at least 2-3 posts on it each week with relevant information and engaging content, it will not only help in SEO, but will help your visitor stay on your website for longer as well.
Customer Centric Approach
You should focus on creating your website for your users or potential customers instead of Google Bot. Your content, website structure, design, features all should be built to engage your customers and make them believe in your business. Site-Navigation should be designed in such a way that it is clear to user which part of the website they are on, and they can navigate through other pages.
Social Presence of Your Business
Social media can be a very cost-effective medium to `create your small business appear as an authority and popular entity on web. Make sure your business has at least a profile setup on all the popular social media platforms, and if you want to go one step ahead you can start posting relevant information on your profiles 2-3 times a week, this will help greatly in SEO as well as in increasing authority of your business. Especially make sure you have Google+ Page for your business, as strong presence on Google+ is also a strong factor Google considers now to rank a website on top of others.
URL Structure Must Be Easy and Simple to Follow
URL Structure can be one of the most critical factors in ranking your website on top of Google. Make sure you create your website with a clear URL Structure and Navigation, which is easy to follow for both users and bots. Having a sitemap on your website is also important as that will guide the Google Bot through different URL levels of your website.
Keep a Close Eye On What Competitors Are Doing?
One of the best strategies in Online Marketing is to follow what your competitors are doing and do it better than them. So it is always a good idea to keep looking at what strategies your competitors are using and implement them in a better way on your website.
Internal Linking
Internal linking can do wonders to your website`s ranking in SERPs, make sure you interlink your pages to each other with relevant anchor texts, to ensure you get the maximum benefits. Similarly interlink your blog posts with your main pages to divert the Google bot from the blog to focus on main pages for those specific keywords.
Conclusion
This list is by far not complete, and there are several other tips and strategies that you can implement in modern SEO as well, but this list can surely work as a starting point for you as a small business to get going on the web sphere. These tips are so simple and non-technical that you can implement them yourself if you don’t want to hire a full-time SEO consultant or company to do the SEO for you.
