SEO, or search engine optimization as it is known, can make a huge difference to your business, allowing your brand to get noticed as opposed to it fading into the background. Companies that need to boost visibility often don’t have the necessary cash injection for expensive SEO, however.
It is very fortunate that there are plenty of different methods by which you can ramp up your SEO without having to spend large sums of money. We asked the Young Entrepreneur Council, and its members, to share with us their best and most cost-effective SEO strategies for increasing brand visibility. Their replies were as follows:
1. Crunch Industry Data And Share It
Across the last 3 of my businesses, our number 1 strategy for SEO has been to locate industry data, analyze and crunch it, and release it out to the public as a consumer-facing website or API. Data of course is found everywhere, but the most meaningful data from the largest and hardest-to-work data sets that people know about but don’t know how to make use of has the biggest link appeal.
Of course, there’s nothing glamorous about spending weeks on end pouring over billions of data points with a scientist. When you’ve finished however, if you have been able to create something that is cable of moving the whole industry world forward, link-building suddenly becomes easy. Spin up an API where you need attribution if the data is to be used, or a consumer-facing website for the data and the links will build themselves, or almost – Nicholas Reese, Elder Guide
2. Decide Which Keywords You Want To Rank For
The first and a very important step in improving your SEO are to get a clear strategy on what it is you want to rank for. You can find out what your competitors are doing, and what people are searching for by using a free tool such as UberSuggest.com. Using such a tool, compile a list of the terms you want to rank for with a maximum of five terms. Then go on to spend the next quarter creating content that addresses those terms specifically and also paying attention to optimizing your posts.
After writing your content, make sure you index it. Then syndicate or share on other sites in order to help build inbound links. Even posting on your own Medium or LinkedIn page can actually help to boost your rankings! – Brittany Hodark, Keynote Speaker
3. Understand The Needs Of Your Customers
Become better at understanding the needs of your customer, throughout all stages of their experience. Ideally, you should actually know your customer better than they know themselves. This will allow you to develop content that will resonate with them and to deliver value and a positive user experience that is loved by both search engines and users.
Become more efficient at developing a strategy that is comprehensive and that addresses the needs of the customer by providing experiences and content that are valuable. You know your customers and how to go about developing the correct message and right content to meet their individual needs.
Really, it’s all about being in the right place at the right time, and it’s not that hard. Become better at tracking strategies that are working, and become better at adapting and optimizing everything – Kevin Getching, Webfor
4. Start With On-Site, Technical SEO
Keep things simple. A strategy that is effective can be broken down into 3 parts. Firstly, ensure that your sire is optimized from a SEO technical perspective. Google Search Console provides you with all the answers you need about page load speed, on-page errors, site map, meta descriptions, broken errors, etc.
Secondly, you must know your customer and what it is they are looking for. What are the queries that they search for? How can you make content that is legitimately valuable to them and that will help them?
Thirdly, create a strategy that will allow you to craft content that is valuable to your customer and that is well done. As long as your technical SEO is well done, and its content is valuable, Google will take care of the rest – Geoff Cayley, Worldwide Cyclery
5. Use Keywords Across Your Digital Channels
The use of keywords in your social media names, handles, and bios, will help your pages appear at the top of the results. Social media platforms have naturally high SEO as they are some of the most-visited websites worldwide. So, it is important that you use this to your advantage!
Ensure that your keywords are incorporated into your social media pages so that results pop up as near to the top as possible. Then, work to making sure that your Instagram, Facebook, etc. profiles communicate clearly what it is you do and can also easily direct your users to your website where they can learn more – Sheila Lewis, Be Inspired
6. Create New Content Consistently
It doesn’t matter is your SEO campaign is already advanced and mature; it still needs more content and links. The best way for a business to work on its SEO without the need for much investment is to build up systems in the company that are consistently pushing out relevant and new content to the site (preferably on a weekly basis) and continue to get opportunities for the driving of links back to their website. Driving links can actually be as easy as going out into the community and adding value.
Join a podcast, speak at local events, or write a guest post for someone’s website. The thing that is most important here is to develop your portfolio of features, this allowing you to then snowball into bigger organization that may like to feature you. No matter if you choose to stay in-house, or hire an agency for your SEO, content and link building is what will drive your success. – Jason Khoo, Zupo
7. In the Wake Of Covid-19, Look At both Short And Long-Term SEO
Take a look at how the pandemic is affecting both long and short term SEO strategies. The pandemic will of course end, but its effect will last for a long time. An example of a short-term strategy would be the publishing of content that relates to the way Covid-19 is affecting your industry, whether medically or will delivery services.
You may also like to update your page for trending and local Covid-19 terms. Longer-term SEO goals should include writing content that addresses questions your customers may have after the pandemic, such as strategies for re-opening, and the online options that you will continue to use and provide for your customers.
Your efforts for the integration of short and long term SEO goals will ultimately continue to change as the pandemic unfolds, so in crazy 2020, always ensure you use your creativity to its full – Shue Saito, All Filters
8. Define Your Target Audience’s Problem “Statement”
Whenever we launch a new website for a client ort a new blog, we initiate the SEO process by defining “the problem statement” of the target audience. Once we have defined the problem and pain points of the audience, we then go on to conduct keyword research around that keyword phrase, starting to develop blog content that is long-form.
Such content is a minimum of 2,000 words long, and is based on the keyword topic. Keyword density should range from 1 to 2 percent. This allows us to start ranking quickly. Christine Marquet, Marquet Media
9. Write Better Content
You need to make sure that your web pages are relevant and engaging to your target audience. Conduct research on the most relevant keywords, making sure that these keywords are include in your Meta description, main header, and your sub-headers, ensuring that your content is indeed relevant through these chosen keywords. When you make your content relevant, it improves your website traffic as well as reducing the bounce rate of your pages – Solomon Themothy, OneIMS
10. Update Your High Ranking Pages
Find your pages that are currently almost high-ranking on search engine, and go on to rewrite them. Use a website analytics tools to find out which pages are ranked lower than one but higher than ten. Then proceed to prioritize these pages, targeting them for an overhaul.
Add examples, answers, and details where appropriate, also including where appropriate user-generated content and customer testimonials. Freshen up any images on the posts and update the statistics. Then proceed to work your way through the list you created and give it a couple of months to see how and if they improved. Then, proceed to do it all over again – Thomas Griffiths, Optin Monster
11. Add Scheme Markup To Your Content
Everyone can improve the SEO of their website by adding schema markup to its content. Schema.org provides you with all the information you require to tag content appropriately, so that the search engines will be able to recognize what your content is all about.
To do this requires no cost, and only minimal effort and research. If however you find this to be somewhat overwhelming, you could also download freemium or free plugins that will carry out the work for you.
Adding schema markups is effective yet simple, and a powerful way to ensure that your content stands out from the crowd and appears at the top of the search results- Said Balkhi, WPBeginner
12. Conduct Research And Steer Clear Of Quick Fixes
All of my income comes from SEO, and my SEO practices made me an entrepreneur. In my opinion and experience companies that look for quick or cheap fixes run into trouble. When you try to implement SEO tactics that are advanced, without fully understanding them, you will end up doing more harm than good.
Content that is appealing and high-quality is essential for not just SEO, and it’s far from being free. Even if you take to writing all your content yourself, it still costs you time.
Perhaps there are issues with the structure of your website or your on-page search engine optimization, but you will need to conduct a technical audit and start to implement the necessary changes.
My team dedicates a lot of time to the development and testing of SEO tactics that move the needle with Google. But those are deployed to sites with content that is optimized and that have robust site architecture. To put things simply, there aren’t any shortcuts – Mathew Diggity, Diggity Marketing
13. Avoid Over-Optimizing
Something that often stops would-be successful SEOs from being successful and from ranking is the fixation on keyword placement and density. Often, matching the intent of the searcher and crafting an insightful article that is well-researched is a far better strategy.
Don’t stuff articles with keywords, instead shifting your focus to writing the best content you can. Provide information that is more valuable than that provided by your competitors, making your content visually more appealing by including infographics, charts, and photos. Most important and fundamental is to make sure that you answer the question of the searcher in a direct manner.
Do not veer into tangential topics or beat around the bush. Maximizing the quality of your content and matching your search intent are crucial ranking factors that are too-often overlooked – Ameen Rahal, IronMonk Solutions.