If you’re a brand-new business trying to make it in the online space, it might seem entirely daunting to start out with an SEO strategy. After all, your competitors have been killing it on page 1 for years. They clearly know what they’re doing and aren’t about to be forced onto page 2 by a green newcomer like you, right?
Not necessarily true! Sure, your competitors might know their SEO. Honestly, they might rely on professional SEOs to do their online marketing for them, and maybe they themselves are pretty confused on SEO in general.
But there’s nothing saying that, with some time and effort, you can’t outperform them with your own SEO skills, even as a new online presence.
How do you do it? Here are some basic SEO practices to follow.
Find Your Keyword List
At the heart of SEO are keywords, those words and phrases that Google matches up with online content results so it can show users who need to know or do something.
Every online business needs its own keyword list so it knows how to optimize its website for users. How do you find your keywords? Think of the terms that your ideal customers would use to find you. Think of the type of business you are and what you sell or offer.
This should help you generate keywords that you can then test in free tools such as Google Keyword Planner or paid tools such as Semrush. You’re looking for monthly search volumes that are high enough to pull in users who would search for those terms.
Produce Content Regularly
No matter what kind of business you are, you’ll need to put content up on your site to communicate to users and tell Google that you’re staying fresh and current. Content is a good opportunity to use those keywords you researched previously. Writing content around those keywords shows Google you’re relevant to those terms, and it may rank you higher.
Now, remember that content in SEO is about more than just written blog posts. It could be images, videos, infographics, e-books, and any other kind of information that users take in. Produce what makes sense for your audience.
Manage Your Technical SEO
Finally, technical SEO issues can plague a site if left untouched, although these are not necessarily problems that you can easily see with the naked eye.
Using a paid digital marketing tool such as Semrush, you can run your site through an audit and get a report on the technical SEO issues on the site.
Problems might include broken pages, missing alt text on images, and missing or duplicate meta tags. Google sees these things and ranks you lower because of them.
If technical SEO or any other aspect of SEO that we have mentioned here seem intimidating to you, don’t forget that there are always professionals out there offering SEO consulting services for those who want to know they’re doing things right.
Otherwise, this should be a great learning opportunity for you and your business!