There are many ways to market your business these days due to modern technology. Some people think that digital marketing can cost their business a fortune. Other people believe that all you need to do is create social media pages to raise brand awareness. However, there is a lot more to digital marketing than that and SEO (Search engine optimisation) is one of them.
The Difference Between Local SEO vs SEO?
Deciding which one would be more suitable for your business when you don’t know much about SEO can be difficult. The competition you get in your local area will be less compared to the rest of the world. That is because fewer businesses are trying to rank for that keyword. An example of this would be the keyword, SEO Birmingham. That SEO agency in Birmingham aims to be on the first page of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). You will rarely go onto the next page to find something on Google. The competition for that keyword is going to be a lot compared to SEO Agency.
If you are only a small business, you will want to start locally first, creating excellent brand awareness in your local area to attract customers. Slowly building your status for that local keyword will soon benefit the much broader keyword later on. Your local SEO is for the searches containing a location, like SEO Birmingham. This is something that you will be wanting to target straight away.
How Does My Business Start Ranking For This Keyword?
First things first, you want to create a website that is user friendly and is well optimised. You can always pay a website developer who will be able to create a good website for you, including one that looks good, is quick and is easy to use. Another thing to take into consideration for your website is site speed. This is important for SEO, especially because of the recent Google Algorithm Update.
However, a custom-built website can cost you a fair amount of money so it is something that you might want to avoid. There are plenty of good CMS’s (content management systems) that are out there. Some are more complicated than others so you want to pick the best one for your business, as a good website will make a huge difference when it comes to SEO.
The most popular one out there at the moment is WordPress. WordPress is used by 33.5% of the websites online today. There are many reasons for that and one of them is because it is so easy to create a website for your business. WordPress offers small businesses a price of £20 per month to use their services, with a free domain for one year.
Now, you want to optimise your website so you can start ranking for the keyword that is suitable for you. Your website will have multiple pages which will have content on them. This content will discuss the services or product your business offers, as well as where to contact you and locate your business. But, make sure it contains the keyword in this content as well.
Set Up Google My Business
You have now created your website for your business. Up next is setting up Google My Business profile. This will contain all the basic information people will need to see online to get in touch with you. It will have your location, address, website and if you have one, a phone number so they can call you.
The best thing about Google my business? It is free. A Google My Business profile will also have reviews of previous customers as well. This is something that a lot of potential customers will like to see.
You need to make sure that everything is the same as your website. Your phone number, location and name need to be identical to your GMB profile. Google should be able to link the two between your website so you must have that on there as well.
Create Great Content
The content was touched on before. However, this is important for your website and for ranking well in Google. The homepage on your website is going to be the popular landing page for your website. Your content needs to be so good that it leads them to other pages on your site.
Talk about what your business has to offer and why they should consider using your services. Remember in this content, you want to keep your keyword mentioned throughout. This is so Google will see your page as a good result for that search query.
Content is a fantastic marketing tool at the end of the day and can go well with your social media pages. You need to choose the right keywords for your business as well. Pick something that is linked to your niche with a good average amount of monthly searches.
The best way you can find this is using Google Keyword Planner. Type the keywords that you would like to rank for and Google will suggest others keywords that might be better to use.
Build Backlinks Through Guest Posts
Writing guest posts for blog sites is another good way to increase your rankings on Google. Again it is something that does not cost and can be easily done. To do this you outreach to blog sites that are linked to your business. For example, if you are a vegan company, you will need to outreach to sites that are linked to nutrition and diets.
Writing guest posts is something that can easily be done and does not take up too much time. Just depends on how long it will take you to write up a blog.
Summary
The things that were just discussed there either cost very little amounts of money or they are free. In fact, the only thing that will cost you a little bit of money throughout the year is setting up your website. However, investing in digital marketing is definitely the future.