Many entrepreneurs that are new to digital marketing operate with limited budgets. To save up, some will probably choose not to invest in website design and optimization right from the start. However, they’re forgetting that 93% of online experiences begin with search engines.
Having a solid website and optimizing it properly is key to your online visibility and building industry credibility. Simply put, it’s not a cost, but an investment in your new company’s image and growth.
Here are a few key benefits of building an optimized website.
It’s Affordable
One of the main benefits of SEO lies in the fact that it is affordable. And, by affordable, I don’t mean free.
To get the most out of your SEO strategy, you will need to hire an in-house specialist that will help you grow your business in the digital landscape. This includes the costs of recruiting, as well as equipping your SEO team with the right tools. Sure, if this is too much for you, you can always hire an SEO agency that already has the team and tools needed to grow your online presence.
Sure, when investing in SEO services, always focus on their quality instead of price. Namely, cheap SEO services come with numerous dangers, such as low-quality content, spammy back links, black hat optimization techniques, etc. Find a reliable professional that will hear you out, build a customized SEO strategy for you, and send regular reports.
You will Gain a Competitive Advantage
You will often hear that SEO is a marathon, not a race, and this is completely true.
For example, many entrepreneurs choose to invest in PPC, as it drives generates results. It helps them appear high in the SERPs faster and increase their online exposure? But, what happens when you stop paying for your paid campaigns? Your ads will be removed, of course.
SEO doesn’t work this way. It may take you months or even years to rank high by optimizing your site organically. Optimizing for the right keywords lets you address your target audience. Building high-quality back links on authoritative sites increases your industry reputation and sends lots of qualified traffic to your site. Optimized meta tags and URLs encourage people to click. Quality content brings value to your audiences, encourages them to spend more time on your site, convert, and come back. Simplified navigation and website responsiveness cater to different audiences and help them find what they’re looking for.
The idea is to get people to share and link to your content organically, come back to your site, and spend time on it. Seeing that, Google will consider you a valuable resource and rank you higher.
It Lets People Find You
Today, your competition in the online ecosystem is growing at an astonishing pace. Just look at the mind-boggling amount of content we create every day. For example, 3.3 million Facebook posts, 500 hours of YouTube videos, and 1,440 WordPress articles are posted in just 60 seconds.
Moreover, stats say that 93% of online experiences start with search engines.
By optimizing for the right keywords, choosing the right content topics, creating spectacular keywords, and building quality links, you will not only get noticed by the right audience, but also encourage them to click on your link. Since these mountains of online data and the only way to stay on top of them is to invest in SEO.
How to Optimize your Website for Search Engines?
Now that you know why optimizing your site is important for your business, here are a few tips on how to do so.
- Optimize for conversational keywords – targeting exact-match keywords and stuffing them doesn’t work anymore. Instead, you need to use tools like Ask The Public, Google’s Autosuggest, or Keywordtool.io that will understand the phrases your users really use and determine their intent.
- Use your NAP (name, phone, address) information consistently across your site and other marketing media. This is immensely important, as the rise of local and voice searches is growing.
- Invest in your site’s security. Switching from HTTP to HTTPS is one of the key items on your website checklist. Apart from becoming a minor ranking signal, HTTPS also boosts users’ confidence and increases conversions.
- Invest in the website responsiveness. Unlike mobile-friendly sites, responsive sites are fluid, meaning that they will adapt to the needs of different users and devices.
- Optimize your meta tags. Your title tags and meta descriptions are the first thing a user spots when navigating down Google’s SERPs. Even though they should include your target keyword, they also need to be written organically. They should inform a user about the purpose of the page, tell them about the content they will find there, and include a strong CTA that will motivate them to click on your link.
- Create valuable content. When writing blog posts, your goal is not only to drive traffic, boost rankings, or increase conversions. Instead, you need to produce data-backed and valuable content that educates, entertains, and engages a reader. These could be different forms of blog posts, from traditional articles to infographics, podcasts, videos, etc.
- Mind the quality of backlinks. Many online marketers believe that the number of backlinks to their site is a key factor determining their rankings. This is not so. Backlinks are one of the most significant ranking signals Google uses. Therefore, you need to focus on researching your link building opportunities y before you contact them.
- Invest in the UX design. Today’s searchers are tech-savvy and they don’t want to waste time on poorly optimized sites. Instead, you need to boost their browsing experience at every stage. Simplify your website architecture, create a logical navigation menu, don’t clutter your pages, avoid any distractions such as ads, etc. Above all, you need to constantly test your site’s responsiveness and speed and improve them on the run.
Over to You
Entrepreneurship has dramatically changed over the past few years. Today, just having a killer business idea is not enough. To succeed, you need to build a solid online presence and constantly improve it. And, this, of course, starts with your site and SEO.
Hope these tips will help you create an impactful website that will boost your online image and help you rank high.
About the Author: Keith Coppersmith is an Adelaide based business consultant with a degree in Media Management. With experience in numerous small businesses and startups, he enjoys giving advice on all things marketing.
