SEO Essentials

We get a lot of calls and emails asking about SEO.  For those not familiar, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, how your site is viewed and ranked by major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! Many business know that their search ranking is important, but most don’t know what to do about it. Worse still, there are a lot of misconceptions going around the web. Here are a couple of tips and tricks to help you with your site and getting more hits, calls, and business.  

1 } Site Titles and Descriptions are Important!

At Media Suite, we make sure that when you’re site goes live to the world it has all the content filled out. However, content is not static. You need to make sure that your site titles and descriptions are optimized to what your potential customers are searching for.  

2 } Keywords — Be Careful!

Everyone just starting out gets a little crazy with keywords. Did you know that Google and others will actually punish you if you overuse keywords? Well, it’s true. While highlighting your keywords in your site, content is super important, don’t over do it. Basically, write out your content with your keywords in mind, but still keep the sentence like you would in real life.

3 } Be Everywhere!

Even if your site is optimized with the perfect keywords, that is not the only thing that search engines check. “Link Backs” are very important as it shows authority. There are many great local directories, and the goal is to be on all of them. No need to go nuts on it, sign up to 3-4 at a time. It works out better in the long run.  

4 } Update, Update, Update!

Have you ever been to a site where it has a “Trademark 2003-2008” and the year is 2015?  Or one where the last blog post was 3 years ago? Your immediate thought is ‘Is this place still in business?’ Well, Google looks at your site the same way. It needs to know that you are active and still in business. Post new pictures, update your content to include holidays and sales, write a new news item or blog post, basically, something. Now, you don’t have to knock yourself out, but make it consistent — do something every month.  

5 } Be Social

Social media has come to dominate the 21st century. It permeates our everyday lives and allows us to show pictures of kittens to people around the world. All kidding aside, social media can be a very important tool for your ranking by driving users or ‘fans’ to your website. How you accomplish this is by making sure that the content you post, from time to time, leads back to your website.  

6 } Did you get the Email?

Email marketing is great for customer retention. It is a way, like social media, to keep people that are interested in your business informed about what is going on. It is also a good way to drive traffic to your site, and the more traffic you have, the more a search engine believes that you are worthy of having a better ranking in search results. Sending out a monthly email newsletter is a great way to interact with customers, push sales, and drive traffic, and increase your ranking.  

Conclusion..

Your website is a very important asset and you need to treat it like one. It is just like your physical business that way. If you don’t refill your inventory, clean your shop, do your books, your business will suffer and the work will begin to pile up. That is the same with your website.  You need to do a little maintenance to get the results you are looking for. You don’t need to dedicate your life to it, just a couple hours a month.