10 SEO tips to benefit small businesses

The ultimate goal of SEO is to help businesses generate more leads and sales. But, google constant updates have made SEO a hot button for many companies. In 2019, it came with the BERT search algorithm. The intention here was to enable searches to mimic human behaviours. Recently, on May 4th, google releases another dossier called “May 2020 core update”. Still, this effect touches all businesses, whether you are a search bigwig or brand new.

Small and medium business need not worry being wiped out of the search engine results pages. The SEO team at https://rankglider.com are here to cater for your visibility online. Rankglider Media ask a few questions before they decide an SEO strategy for your small and medium businesses. These include:

How does your business get inner workings of Google algorithms? Additionally, is your site finding “money” keywords that drive customers to your site?

 Then, is your content up to date?

Again, are you link -building to a relevant website?

Answering such questions helps the team to decipher the complex and secret algorithm Google uses. But, don’t fret because in this article you’ll learn them today. Here, we’ll break the three pillars of ranking:

  • Website relevancy
  • Authority
  • Quality of your site.

Let’s find them out

QUALITY

1.      Focus on your content

Presenting to your audience a website with thin content will not attract clicks. Besides, your website will struggle if you have a post with low counts or low-quality content.

But, that makes sense since Google wants to show searchers with meaningful information. In other words, immerse yourself and provide your audience with original details. Go ahead and deliver valuable and comprehensive posts. Your content quality should also corroborate with the Google core updates.

2.      Clear errors and broken links

We all know that links stay forever, unlike posts and pages. Likewise, they became nudnik when they don’t point to your website anymore. Stand out from the crowd by performing this simple SEO task more often. You can use a broken link checker plug-in to check and unlink them.

3.      Make a Mobile-friendliness website

According to Statista, mobile users constitute half of the web traffic in mid-2020. With this in mind, your SEO priorities should split 50-50 to cater to both markets. A mobile-friendliness site has readable text and clickable links.

Some of the SEO tips here include:

  • Use a framework to scale your site pages to any device.
  • Apply responsive themes
  • Make your menus simple
  • Cut pop-ups on a mobile version
  •  speed  should be your priority

Website optimization

4.      You need a fast website

Nobody loves to hang around the site with snail speed pages.  Likewise, It will impact your business revenue. Usually, the loading speed of your website depends on factors like:

  • Hosting company
  • Large images
  • Plug-ins and Apps
  • Ads.

You’ll need to fire up your site to launch like a rocket. Some few SEO tips for a performing website include:

  • Run a webpage taste. It will give you a more particular insight that is derailing your website speed.  To be sure, head over to google page speed insight and input your URL.
  • You can also get more speed insight with Pingdom
  • Use cloud- flare to supercharge your website.
  • Upgrade your hosting plan. Let’s assume that you are receiving tens of thousands of visitors per month. Here, you’ll need to use a more expensive hosting plan to cater to your growing demands.
  • Minify your CSS and HTML files.  In particular, you need to remove unnecessary comments and white spaces. 
  • Use an image compression tool to reduce their sizes without compromising quality.
  • Use only one analytical program. Here, when you add another analytical code to your website, it slows down.

 

5.      Brainstorm and rank for the most profitable keywords

In your SEO marketing strategy, keywords are one of the most crucial sections to check. First of all, your initial stage is to brainstorm your business products. Here, you’ll write these keywords that describe your business -“seed” keywords. For example, a marketing agency can use SEO or digital marketing.

Next, immerse yourself in your audience’s shoes and assume you are them. For example, an SEO company might help customers solve a few problems they are facing. For instance, customers might type his question, such as “SEO tips for small businesses.”

Additionally, you can get more keywords from the Google search console. Here, you will get more keywords that your website is already ranking.

Moreover, you have more options since you can:

  • Check your competitor keywords using SEMrush. Here, you’ll check if they are using key-phrases you plan to rank.
  • If your business is a location base, check search volume and competition level for the area. Here, you can use SEMrush tool to do all the research.

Once you have your keywords and phrases, explore the profitable ones. Here, you need to consider search volume, competition, and cost per click (CPC). Usually, the secret is to choose key- phrases that you can win (low competition) and are worth (high volume).

6.      Get backlinks from popular and authoritative sites

Often, Google prefers websites with a lot of links pointing at that business. For example, MOZ bar chrome extension shows top sites have more backlinks. The best way forward is to nose around at your competitor and see their backlinks. Next, analyze the quality one, then use them on your website.

7.      Structure and organize your website

Usually, it is SEO advisable to have a good structure for your business website. Here, you’ll improve your ranking possibility and helps visitors access core content. That is to say, you need to arrange your pages, have categories, and sub-pages.  For example:

Page -Digital marketing

Category-

  • SEO
  • Content marketing
  • Social
  • How to guide

8.      Think about a social signal

When we talk about the social signal, it relates to your webpage’s general likes and shares. Generally, a social signal will impact your SEO because it contributes to visibility. As a small business, it’s time to integrate it as part of your SEO marketing strategy.

9.      Use a friendly URL

In particular, you need to come up with a friendly web address that is easy to read. Here, we are talking about a web address that uses words that describe the content of the webpage. It helps visitors remember your site.

10.  Use enticing Meta description

Sometimes a visitor will click on your link and ignore the top ones because you have what he needs. In this case, you’re in a better position if more visitors like your Meta description. In most cases, Google will notice that and do you a ranking favor.

 To sum up, the domain age also plays a crucial role in SEO ranking math. Maybe, this is as a result of history. So, avoid opening new ones, and instead use the old domain you have.

7 Social media marketing ideas and strategies

For all its value and generosity, social media has its snag. Despite its popularity, it is becoming difficult to gain visibility. Your business has to craft a social media marketing campaign to hit the right audience. Here, it is proving to be hard being a marketer or advertiser these days. Here, when you think you have mastered the game, someone goes and changes the rule. Furthermore, a new social media platform keeps on emerging every year, and you must join. In the end, it creates information overload.

First, before you implement any social media ideas, you have to conduct internal/ external audit and SWOT. You can do in-depths interviews with your employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders. In general, it will help you gauge how your employees communicate and collaborate. Additionally, it’ll help you judge whether your organizational culture needs to change. You have to verify if social media can contribute to your business objectives.

Why your business needs social media marketing

Social media novice will tell you that social media is the best way to connect with your audience. At present, social media marketing is an indispensable tool for all businesses alive. Here, you’ll engage with your customers, increase sales, and build relationships. A July 2020 report by Statista shows that 4.57 billion people worldwide now use the internet. Besides, 346 million new users have come online in the last year.

You are about to learn social media marketing ideas and strategies to market your plan. Moreover, this approach applies whether you are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn. What your business gains from these platforms are exposure, which is good for growth.

Finally, there’s no magic when it comes to success in social media marketing. In short, you have to build a firm and long-lasting relationship with your customers. Share all types of content and expertise they would love to see or read. In the end, they will share it with their networks and becomes insider brand ambassadors.

To help you out, I have put down social media ideas and strategies key consideration for you.

Social media ideas and strategies

  • Decide which network is the best fit for your business.

Prestigious companies with the resources do bulldoze at high gear into any platform. To emphasize, you are not them; it’s preferable to focus on one or two vital social networks. Your time is valuable. So, there’s no need to be mediocre on four or five platforms.

Without a doubt, not all platforms are going to appeal to your audience or business. First of all, unearth where your target audience hangs out. People join Facebook and twitter because of the enormous sheer size and influence. But, to your surprise, you can make a massive impact on Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Lastly, experiment and learn about what each platform brings to the table.

  • Define and test your goals

Before posting content to social media, you need to specify the aims of your strategy. Here, when you are performing a SWOT analysis, goals should follow SMART guidelines. SMART objectives are:

  • Specific. Do you want to raise awareness, increase sales, or want to improve customer service?
  • Measurable. What tools are you going to use for analytics to track your progress?
  • Achievable. Have you put in place a realistic goal?. As beginners don’t aim too high, you will deflate your assets.
  • Relevant. Your goal should align with the business vision, values, and mission.
  • Timely. It is better to stick to one goal at a time. For example, I want to get new customers by 300% in the next three months.
  • Shape your content strategy by performing an audit

Usually, carrying an audit will help you have an idea of what social media content works for you. Here, you will identify your audience’s desires, needs, and interests. First of all, ask yourself what problems you can help them solve. Secondly, what questions you can answer with an expert view. Lastly, what content type do they prefer? Is it text, infographics, or videos?

The best green button is to use your competitor for a nose around. As a result, you will identify gaps and use them as an opportunity.

  • Use a social media content calendar to plan.

Your audiences are always thirsty for fresh, quality content. Thus, to help you distribute all these content, you need a social media content calendar. An editorial calendar will help you plan for months or even a year. As a result, you will build seasonal themes. For example, sharing a new post on Monday, hosting “Ask me anything” Thursdays, and others.

  • Re-purpose your content the platforms

One Holy Grail about content is that you can distribute it in different pieces. For instance, you can market a press release as three or four content pieces. You can:

  • Blog about the story
  • Tweet the story
  • Make a video on the story
  • Turn the story into infographics for Pinterest
  • Build a relationship and provide value instead of over-promoting

Usually, the vast majority of social media users are there to interact with families and have a fan. If you see them following a brand, they do so because of passion. Now, posting your latest blog every single moment won’t build any love. Thus, your mission is to convince them to enjoy having your business as everyday normal.

That is achievable if you change your attitude from “what can we sell you” to “what we can do to help you.” In summary, your content should touch your audience on a personal and emotional level.

  • Listen with a social media audit.

From a broader perspective, it is a systematic examination of your social media data. In other words, it is where you take a snapshot of all social media activities in and around. Then you check all the information you have gathered.

Listening to what happens around you is very crucial. For example, please take a look at Dave’s song about United Airlines’ mishandling of his guitar in 2006. That song received three million views within a week and was on CNN and BBC. After that, United Airlines’ stock dropped by 10% because they did not make things right.

Summary

Being active or your business having social media accounts is not that difficult. But, your business may have had a Facebook page since its inspection. Yet, understanding how to use that page is quite another game. It is a game you can triumph if you take your time and plan an active social media strategy.

How To Become A Social Media Manager?

Social Media Management can be in the form of a social media engager or social media manager. The former mostly replies to comments, tweets, queries, and the likes. At the same time, the latter engages with the fans with commenters or the sharers.

The social media manager is like the next level of an engager. He is responsible for creating and scheduling content. He makes videos if needed by a client. He establishes and plans content, replies to private messages, and also prepares analytics reports. He concentrates mainly on brand awareness.

The next in the level of the hierarchy is the marketer. He aims to publish content that aims to convert. He also makes sales push products and services or events. His main objective is to sell, They handle Facebook and Instagram Ads and reach out to influencers,

Mostly small businesses hire one person who handles all the three tasks of engager, manager, and marketer. But big firms employ different people for these tasks.

As a social media manager, you have to identify your target audience and niche. The target influencers would-be entrepreneurs, small business owners, coaches, and online course creators or businesses like gyms or yoga. The more you know your niche and what to sell, the more comfortable it is to create engaging content for a specific client.

The second requirement is to create your online business presence- Facebook pages, Instagram account, or LinkedIn company profiles.

Last but not least, rate your service by creating different packages so that the client may choose.