No matter what industry you’re in, being a successful business today requires a great handle on online marketing – Especially SEO. This is because your online presence both represents your brand and it is also a critical element in attracting and gaining customers. In fact, 81% of shoppers conduct online research before making a purchase and 94% of business buyers do some type of online research before making a business purchase decision.
The key to appealing to these potential customers is fully optimizing your online presence, and the best way to do that is to develop a better understanding of SEO and Analytics. Here are 4 important rules of SEO/Analytics that every business owner and marketer should know:
1. Write for humans, not for search engines It’s easy to get caught up in the latest SEO “tips and tricks” that claim to boost your rankings overnight, but smart business owners and marketers know that the key to SEO success is creating great content that appeals to human beings. It’s true that search engines rely on automated technical measures and algorithms to evaluate web pages, but since these aspects of search are unpredictable, they should never be the guiding factors of your company’s SEO strategy. What should instead guide your SEO strategy is the one SEO rule that has stood the test of time: that search engines value content that helps human beings. Focusing on appealing to people rather than search engines guarantees that your business’ website performs well online.
2. Aim for keyword optimization at every level
Just like any other form of communication, the content on your website must
be organized in order for your readers to easily understand you, and this is why having proper keyword usage is one of the top rules in SEO. Keywords are what online users rely on to search for and discover websites and businesses online, so when you’re building and updating your website, be sure to add relevant keywords in the areas that make the most difference. Here are a few places that you should always have relevant keywords throughout your website:
- Webpage URL
- Page title / heading
- In the body of the page
- Image names
- Image alt tags
3. Your analytics contain keys to growth Every website should have some form of analytics installed, whether it is the industry standard Google Analytics, or some other program. The most obvious benefit of having access to your website’s analytics is the insight you’ll get into how quickly your website is growing and how much traffic you’re getting. However, another smart way to take advantage of your analytics data, which is a rule all successful marketers know, is applying key aspects of your analytics data to facilitate further growth. For example, your analytics will tell you which pages are driving most of your traffic, what websites your visitors are coming from, and what keywords are helping visitors find your website. It would make sense, then, to spend more time promoting pages and keywords that are already driving traffic. Taking these insights and applying them to your online marketing strategy is bound to lead to faster growth.
4. Reliable growth takes time to realize
A final rule about SEO and Analytics that every business owner and marketer should know is the fact that reliable website growth takes time. This is especially true when you’re implementing long-term SEO strategy, building inbound links, and marketing your content, which can’t be rushed without sacrificing quality. A good rule of thumb for monitoring the success of any large SEO campaign is to wait 4-6 months before making any final conclusions. If you wait for less than this amount of time, search engines might not have fully recognized the work you’ve done and the analytics data might not show you the full picture.
If you’re looking to significantly grow your business’ online success, contact us to learn more about how our broad range of internet marketing services can work for you.
