Online, digital or internet marketing has come a long way! We now have the ability to reach out to our customers long before they may ever consider using our services. There are so many opportunities to talk to your audience and attract them to your business.

Internet Marketing is a big topic so we’ll start by discussing – your Website and Content Creation.

In following weeks we’ll move on to Social Media, Conversion, and Analysis.

Internet Marketing

How to Optimize your website for SEO

There are too many sites these days for you to rely on just being found. Even if you have the most beautiful website on the block it may not be enough to attract and keep visitors at your site. SEO optimization remains key but being successful with it relies on you optimizing for searchers (ie your potential customers) NOT the search engines.

“These days SEO is about content.” Check this article to learn a lot more about keyword research, WordPress SEO plugins & keyword optimization.

Here are some ways to get started with website SEO and which elements to target.

1. Page titles should describe and be aligned with the content they represent

• Include relevant key terms, add these as close to the beginning as possible
• Use less than 70 characters (otherwise it will be cut off in search results)
• Make your titles unique within your site, don’t duplicate

2. Customize Meta descriptions

This is the small summary text for a web page which is displayed in search results. Think of this as a mini-ad for your page and use it to write a compelling description of what is on the page to encourage click-through.

3.  Headings

Searchers as well as search engines pay more attention to headings. Use keywords in your headings and pay particular attention to your primary or H1 heading. If you have lots of text use some H2 and H3 headings as well to break up your paragraphs.

4. Images

Can help or harm your website. Using too many images can slow your site reducing its usability for searchers and SEO. However, images can improve the experience on your site so when they are used make sure you

• Associate text with each image in your Alt text – this ensures there will be information available even if your images fail to display
• Use keywords in your alt text to allow traffic for image searches. Separate all words in the alt text with a dash. This allows each words to be captured as a keyword. eg marketing-health-businesses

5. Structure your URL – your page’s unique web address

• For the reason listed above – separate words with dashes
• Describe what is on the page

Finally make sure your pages optimized for viewing on mobile devices. Ideally a responsive site is best. This allows the content on your site to be adapted to whatever screen size is being used. Google prefers this as it allows efficient crawling and indexing. Other options include a specific mobile site or use of an app.

Backlinks

Quality backlinks or inbound links also improve your SEO. These can be obtained in several ways (eg. listing on website directories) but make sure you’re focusing on quality not quantity and take your time – it looks far more natural for links to grow in number over time rather than triple overnight! Here are some tips on proactively obtaining backlinks to improve your SEO.

Content Creation

Think of your content as the fuel that drives your marketing. It will attract not only visitors to your site but by creating valuable, specific and relevant content you’ll attract the right visitors – ones who will likely convert to leads and customers of your business. Content also helps SEO by earning your site inbound links which increase your ranking and improve your website’s search-ability.

What to Blog about

Usually content revolves around education of your industry and potential customers. Think of industry issues, problems your customers regularly face and solutions you can offer in terms of services and products to tackle these issues. Always remember to let your expertise and passion shine through in what you are writing about.

Here is an excellent article on Blog Strategy.

Don’t forget

• A great headline to capture interest
• Well written text with formatting to make your information easy to read
• Multimedia content – images, videos, infographics, slideshows etc
• Links to relevant content so readers can research further into what interests them
• a CALL TO ACTION! – Join Social Media page, signup to Newsletter, make an appointment, ask for further information  etc etc

Tips other than blogging

• Whitepapers
• eBooks
• Reports
• Videos
• Slideshows
• Webinars

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More next time!

Sources
Blog Strategy Guide
Proactive Ways to get Backlinks
Content Marketing SEO