It’s Time to Step Up Your SEO
Are we crazy or does it seem like people have forgotten about the value of great SEO and a sound SEO strategy? And if they haven’t altogether forgotten about it, it’s certainly near the bottom of their mandatory marketing tactics list. But the fact is, if you’re not consistently trying to win in SEO, you’re losing. So in the spirit of paying homage to the search engine gods we’ve got a three things you can do right now to step up your game.
1. Use Rich Snippets to Get More Information In Front of People Who Care
You know when you perform a Google search and you see results with just the standard page title, page description, and a URL? Kinda boring right? Who’d wanna click that 2008-looking link? No one. Well, grandma maybe. People are looking for more information in the search engine results page in order to decide what the best result to click is.
Rich snippets solve that by including information in your search results that make them stand out. Prices, ratings, categories, etc., are examples of info that can be displayed to help consumers make a decision.
Using structured data to mark up your site content allows Google to search it and display it with this additional context-adding data. Better context equals better information and that equals more clicks for your target consumers. It’s win-win here, folks.
More info on rich snippets can be found here.
2. Reduce Your Page Load Speed
The last thing anyone wants to do in the 21st century is wait around for a website to load. We know that no one is trying to make people wait on purpose. Most people don’t even know their site is super sloooooow and they didn’t think about it when they had it built back in 2001.
But let’s be real: when 1 second slower speed makes a difference in user results, you simply have to make sure you’ve got your website stuff together. This is not a set it and forget it task.
So what’s a good load time? Well, it depends on your business, but 25% of people will abandon your page after waiting for 4 seconds so it’s safe to be better than that.
How do you fix a slow site? Start by going to a speed audit site like Pingdom to see how your site fares. Take action based on the results. We can’t bore you with the details of reducing image sizes, caching, and better code (this blog would be way too long if we did), but we trust you can figure it out, or you can call us to do a site audit and recommended optimization program.
3. Make Better Content
This is stupidly simple: make content that your target audience will find valuable and the publish it often. What does your customer need from you? How do you solve a problem or add a benefit to their lives? How does your product work? What are FAQs around your product or category? These are all good pieces of content that fit the needs of your consumer. You should use SEO best practices but the power is in making and publishing the content so that it’s out getting out there in the world. If you build it (well), they will come. That sort of thing.
So why does good content matter?
When you make content, it shows up in search results. When it’s good content that people click and consume, it shows up higher in search results. The more spots you hold in the top results, the better. That sends a signal to consumers that says you’re worth looking into. Because your customers want to know about you and your product. They may not know your name yet, but that’s OK. If they find you through your content that’s sitting on the first page of their search results and you’ve added value to their experience, then congrats because you’re at the conversion five yard line.
Now stop reading blogs and go out and get your SEO on. Your customers and your bottom line will thank you.
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