It is incredible how far we have come in the last few decades. Many of us still remember trying out Google for the first time and finding out how useful it was for finding information, and it loaded so fast. It wasn’t long before Google became the first part of any search, and then search engines became integrated into our browsers. From there, we were hardly aware of how search engines became the dominant power of the internet and eventually over almost all business presence. Indeed, you cannot exist in a significant way anymore unless you can be found on Google or DuckDuckGo. So having your site appear on a search engine result page is the most critical task of your website. Optimizing for search engines is called search engine optimization (SEO). Here are some of the essentials of a strong SEO strategy.
- Know Your Goal: Like everything else in life, you will get further with a clear purpose. Many people want their website to have a little of everything, however, as you have probably heard, less is more. Professional SEO strategies drive traffic to specific action, so everything on your site should be optimised to encourage that action to happen. You need to analyse your company, your vision, products, and the site’s personality. Simplify everything down to the core elements and limit anything that distracts.
- Understand Your Market: Different demographics respond differently to marketing. It is critical to learn your core demographic, which can be done through research and analytics. You might want to hire focus groups or similar professional agencies that can help you identify the heart and soul of your typical customer. Analytics should be ongoing, and campaigns should continue to respond to changing social realities. A solid social media campaign can help in this regard.
- Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses: It is impossible to be all things to all people. Every entity fills a niche; when you identify where you fit the best, your efforts are repaid organically. If you are strong on quality, image, or usefulness, then emphasize those points. Make no mention of value if you are selling an image. The only thing that should appear on your site are elements promoting the desirability of the action you want the user to make, and elements directing the user to proceed with that action.
Users want a site that provides what they searched for, is clear about what is available, and how to find it. They want to see information supporting the product or action and a professional appearance and function without bugs or cursed links. The more your site is built to represent the demographic you are targeting, the more accepting they will be to your calls to action. When you do all of this correctly, you will be building the positive signals that the search algorithms are indexing. The more positive signals you generate towards a query, the higher you land on the results page. Then the higher you land, the more organic traffic you generate. And on and on it goes, as you begin to solidify your place in the market.
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