Content Creation: According to Internet Live Stats, Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second, which translates to more than 3.5 billion searches every day and 1.2 trillion searches every year, worldwide.
Add to these numbers the number of interactions with social media and mobile applications and ranking higher on the Internet can be downright overwhelming.
The good news is that search engines remain the dominant resource for people to find and cultivate information on the web.
This makes focusing your efforts on organic searches the best way for companies to realize enormous dividends for their websites and blogs.
Whether you’re new to SEO or looking for the most effective strategies to dominate Google, having a basic understanding of search engine optimization techniques along with knowledge of the latest algorithm changes will put you ahead of a majority of those trying to optimize their websites.
The first thing that you need to learn about driving traffic to your website is that all your efforts start from your own backyard. The first rule to building an excellent foundation for website traffic is remarkable content. Being a small business owner, you need to appreciate the immense array of new media tools that you have at your disposal.
The first rule that you need to follow is to diversify your content among as many different media formats as possible. This includes textural, audio, audio-visual, etc. Every business, no matter what they sell, requires a specific set of skills to survive, and ultimately succeed.
Unfortunately, many people shrug off these skills as everyday occurrences, which leads to those more willing to acknowledge their gifts receiving more attention, publicity, and more business through higher web traffic.
To provide the best content to consumers, you need to take the time to isolate your specific skills; those that qualify you to succeed in your chosen profession.
Most small business websites that thrive, do so because they aren’t merely filled with business jargon, but because they are relatable and able to communicate the qualities of a great business through articles, anecdotes, etc. This is the kind of content that the general public can relate to and learn from.
So, in addition to the usual content, you need to make sure that you have a blog on your website that can serve as an educational and exciting target for the perusal of consumers.
Greater public visibility naturally will lead to an increase in traffic and business propositions for you.
As you begin to develop your content, you need to identify different styles of material. Determine what might benefit more from being discussed in short videos, and those that would better serve your business through podcasts or textual articles alone.
Having a greater variation in your content styles will allow your site visitors to gather information depending on their mood. It can also allow you to satiate their need to learn through video or literary outlets at the same time.
Along with the different styles of content that you will need to decide on, you will also need to keep an eye on your website analytics. These are provided in-house by portals like WordPress or Google analytics. You can complete the easy sign-up process
for Google analytics and start receiving analytical information in three to four days.
The analytics will allow you to identify public favorites among your hosted content and check whether the new video or article has received adequate public approval. This is determined by the amount of time spent on average on that particular article by each audience member.
If the analytics show that they sat through an appropriate amount of time to read it in its entirety, then you’ve done an excellent job with your content. However, if they move on from it after just 30 seconds, you may need to revisit your judgment regarding the style or topic.
Keeping an eye on your analytics, and tweaking your content accordingly, allows you to understand the tastes of your audience better and cater to that taste appropriately so that you can further nurture your growing visitor base.
When your audience is happy, they will refer your website to others around them, which will help to drive more traffic to your site through word-of-mouth. The best way to encourage this is through maintaining high credibility with your existing base.
You also need to keep in mind that you need to post new content on a regular basis. Nothing will dwindle your existing visitor base faster than a stagnant website. People will only invest their time in websites that seem to be developing and growing.
After you’ve focused on the quality and frequency of the content you develop, the easiest way to bring more traffic from the outside is to build your Search Engine Optimization, (SEO).
The first step in developing SEO is to make sure that you’ve submitted your website links to the various search engine platforms. While not every URL provided will make it onto the search indexes, a majority of them do without any problems.
Completing this first step allows Google’s crawlers to index and display your website within their search results. This can also be done for other search engines like Bing and Yahoo.
Once you’ve submitted your website URL’s for indexing, you need to perform SEO on all of your current content. You will also need to keep this in mind as you move forward.
SEO is basically about allowing the search engine crawlers, or virtual bots, to categorize and classify your site in order of relevance to keywords. The higher the significance of a particular site in response to a specific keyword, the better its chances of appearing higher up on search lists.
Appearing higher on the search engines is vital. This is because all your efforts aren’t necessarily geared towards people who already know about your site and can directly access it by inputting its URL, but rather towards those who aren’t aware of your business and are looking for options based on the keywords in their search query.
SEO has become an extremely competitive field. You have to be able to understand the mind of your customers and create lists of possible keywords that you can use, so your customers can get to the topical content that you’ve provided.
Take some time to look at the content that you’ve already created. Make a list of possible keywords that you would use to get to content like this on the Internet.
The keyword phrases that you determine should be between two to four words long. To help you compile your list faster, use one of the keyword phrases and enter it into the Google search bar. After you hit search, scroll to the bottom of the page. Here you will see roughly eight to ten related searches and keyword phrases.
Take a look at the list and see if it might be able to help you find a few more keyword phrases that you believe are strongly related to your content. Repeat this process several times with different keyword phrases. This will allow you to find a broader range of keywords that are relevant to your content.
After you’ve identified 15 to 20 keywords and keyword phrases, go back through your current content and make sure that the keywords that you’ve determined are present in the content. You will also need to rewrite your title and subtitle to ensure that one of the more distinct keyword phrases is present.
Don’t get too overzealous with inserting keywords and keyword phrases into your articles. They should only account for around 1.5 percent of your total word count. Search engines will automatically lower your rank in the indexes if there is excessive keyword cramming.
You’ll want to add at least three keywords to the title tag of your content, as well as adding the important keyword phrase in the metadata and description of your content.
Again, it is important not to get overzealous and stuff your tagline with errant tags as this will lead to your rank being lowered.
The best way to handle SEO is to identify the best possible search engine key phrases and dedicate a few unique ones to each article or piece of content you create.
You can also use plugins like SEO Search Terms Tagging, which will help you to identify the exact search terms that visitors used to find their way to your site.
If you find that other search terms would be better for bringing customers to your site, then you may want to consider changing the list of keywords that you’ve created.
When it comes deciding on your keywords, avoid using more archaic or abstruse words in the hope of being unique. Your goal is to find the right keywords and phrases that are the most realistic depictions of search engine language that a majority of your visitors would use to find your site.
However, where your ingenuity comes in, is finding ways to express the same set of keywords in different ways. Your challenge is to discover the configuration of words that will help to lead your visitors to your site successfully.
Unfortunately, the problem with SEO is that today’s higher tech-savviness means that using shorter keyword phrases tends to bring up too many results and too much competition.
However, two thirds of all searches are performed using long strings of keywords, so finding the right longer keyword strings can lead to more customers finding your site.
