Remember when you launched your small business’ first website? It was probably an exciting day. Thoughts of new customers and an ever-increasing number of visitors had you patting yourself and your team on the back for a job well-done. Of course, it probably didn’t take long to realize that a website isn’t something that is launched and simply forgotten. Real effort must be put into earning credibility with search engines, attracting more traffic, engaging those visitors, and encouraging them to share your message with others. The constant race to rank higher in search engine results in order to be found by new customers can quickly consume a lot of time and attention. Constant changes to search engine optimization (SEO) protocol and site ranking algorithms can be hard to keep track of and make reaching those upper echelons of search results harder and harder to achieve.
Rest assured though, that if you treat your website like one of your top sales people, you’ll have less to worry about. The constantly changing world of SEO typically revolves around trying to weed out the imposters, and reward the authentic players. One of the ways that search engines such as Google evaluates a website is whether it contains unique, original content that engages real visitors. By arming your website with new content on a regular basis like you might do for a sales team, you can demonstrate that you have a lot of knowledge and valuable information to share.
Now, we admit there is a lot more to increasing a website’s rankings and “findability,” including website code structure, metadata and tags, etc. However, today we’re going to stick with covering a handful of content ideas that should be within reach for most small business owners.
Brush Up Your Writing
Written content, which can cover everything from blogging to forums, on your website can be used not only to attract new visitors, but engage them for longer periods of time once they arrive. Ensuring that content is constantly refreshed, updated and innovative will make it easier to climb to the top of the proverbial SEO mountain. Making sure that your blog has new entries on a regular basis will alert search engines’ algorithms that your business is an active online participant and deserves the public’s attention. It is important to note that you should write content for your customers, not search engines!
The Power of Video
One area that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO-focused content is video. Embedding videos into your website can be a great way to not only engage your customers, but also trigger Google to recognize your site quicker. When posting videos, ensure that they are tagged with the correct keywords that are relevant to your business or what you’re selling. For example, if you own an online-based clothing store you wouldn’t want to title your video “Video 1”. Instead, a title such as “New Spring Dresses” will add valuable keywords to your video and improve search results, as well as show up in the new “Video” section of Google and Bing’s results page.
In addition to adding important keywords to your videos, you also want to make sure that the videos you use for your website are high-quality and viewer friendly.
Ensuring that your videos are quick to download and are visually inspiring will keep your audience‘s attention longer and show that your brand is savvy and invested in retaining your clients.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The same rule of keeping things visually appealing also is important for the photography shown on your website. For online retailers, product photos are paramount to success. Regularly updating your product photos and landing page photos are important for customer engagement and search engine optimization. With a plethora of free photo and video editing tools available, any company with any sized budget can look like a million bucks!
You work hard to make sure your products and services are high quality, so make sure your website and online presence reflects that! If you don’t have the time or money to invest in making improvements to your content, consider a loan from IOU Financial to get you the funds you need to get the job done. When done correctly, you will surely see the return in your online traffic and sales!