The ABCs Of SEO For New Entrepreneurs And New Business Owners
When most people hear the term Search Engine Optimization or SEO, they usually recoil in fear.
It's a term that we have pretty much all heard, but it's also one that few of us truly understand.
Essentially, SEO is the act and process of optimizing a website to maximize its visibility to search engines like Google or Bing.
In other words, just like branding and logo design, SEO is an integral part of any modern digital marketing strategy. So if you're an entrepreneur just starting, it's most definitely worth learning about SEO!
Below, we're diving into the basics of SEO, which should help give your website a boost in terms of generating traffic.
Keywords
A keyword or keyworded phrase is what an internet user inputs into a search engine.
For instance, you may have input something like "basics of SEO" or "SEO for new entrepreneurs" into Google to find this blog post.
Essentially, if you want your potential customers to land on your website from the search engines, you'll need to have the keywords they're most likely to use on your website.
So, for example, if you own a company that sells running shoes for athletes, you'd likely want to have keywords on your website, such as:
- Men's running shoes
- Women's running shoes
- Unisex running shoes
- Kids running shoes
- Running shoes
- Etc.
Of course, this is only an example.
But by ensuring that your site has the right keywords on it, you'll theoretically be able to drive a decent amount of traffic to your site coming directly from Google and other search engines.
Keyword research is a time-consuming yet essential part of SEO, where you'll take the time to find the keywords that are being used most often by your potential customers.
You can use tools like Google's Keyword Planner or Moz's Keyword Explorer to target keywords with high search volumes and relatively low competition levels.
Using Keywords
After you've narrowed down the keywords your customers are likely using, it's time to get those keywords onto your website.
You'll need to use these keywords in many places, including in the main body text on your web pages and blogs, in the meta descriptions, your image alt attributes, URLs, etc.
The simplest way to get started with this is to start writing blog posts based on the keywords that you've found.
So, for instance, maybe you've found the term "men's running shoes" to be trendy.
In this case, you might want to consider creating a blog post with that keyword in the title, such as "The best men's running shoes brands and styles 2021."
Some content management systems (CMS) will provide you with tools to help you better optimize your content for specific keywords.
But, at the bare minimum, you'll want to include your keywords in the headline and main body of your text.
Indexing
If a search engine doesn't know about your website or blog post, you'll have virtually no chance of generating organic traffic.
That's why it's crucial to understand the importance of generating and submitting an XML site map to the foremost engines like Google and Bing.
This process is called indexing, and essentially, it tells the search engine to visit your website and add it to its library of possible search results.
Typically, your CMS should allow you to generate a sitemap automatically.
But if not, you may need to use a plugin or speak with a web designer to do this for you.
Backlinks
Finally, you'll need to start building backlinks to give your site the most significant SEO boost possible.
Backlinks are hyperlinks placed on other websites that point back to your own that act like votes of confidence for your content.
Backlinks tell search engines like Google that your site is reliable and trustworthy since other site owners trust you enough to place a link on their sites.
The more backlinks your site has, the better it will look in the eyes of the search engines, which means a better chance of driving traffic to your site.
The Fundamentals of SEO
In the end, keyword research and analysis, indexing and backlinking are relatively simple concepts.
But there's a lot more to SEO than just that!
So don't be scared to get started, and learn as much as you can about SEO, and you'll be generating free, organic traffic in no time!
The ABCs Of SEO For New Entrepreneurs And New Business Owners
