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5 Things You Can Do To Increase Rankings For FREE

Proper-SEO-for-a-Blog600Search Engine Optimization has many angles. In other words, there are many ways to skin that cat!

Here are 5 things you can do right away that Google loves and should give your site a nice boost without costing you a penny!

1. Start a Blog or Learning Center.
Yes, start writing about your business! You are the expert, right? Start searching Google for topics that are relevant to your business. Imagine questions a new customer who is shopping for your products or services might ask and do a Google search for those questions. Google will fill in suggested phrases for the most frequent related search queries. Another strategy is to just pick the most frequent questions you hear from your customers that need explanation. Make sure to update your Blog at least once per month, though once per week is optimal. Google loves the weight of the additional content as well as the frequency with which your site is updated. The more often the updates and the more relevant, original content… the better!

Make sure NEVER to copy and paste other sites content. Plagiarism will get you penalized, so be careful. You are the expert about your business, so writing about what you know should be a piece of cake! In addition to the content, Google will like the fact that the words used are all going to be relevant and related to your business and services. So, you get a win, win, win! Lastly, if the questions are frequently searched, you will also gain direct traffic to your blog because people are actually searching for the information you are providing. I guess that makes it a win, win, win, win!

2. Add an FAQ page to your website.
This is similar to a blog, but this page should contain a series of questions with short answers. 20 to 25 frequently asked questions answered in 2-3 sentences should do the trick. This works well for the same reasons specified above, but it also helps build your credibility and increase conversions as visitors to your site will see you as the experts you are! Remember, Lead Generation is always the main goal.
3. Double check your page titles!
The page title tag is a very important factor in increasing visibility on Google. One of the biggest mistakes we see made by inexperienced web developers for small business websites is when the company name is placed in the title tag. Even worse, sometimes the home page will have a page title that simply says “home”. This is a waste of valuable space and isn’t doing you any good. Of course your site should come up when someone Googles your company name. Your company name may even be part of your website domain name. What you want is for NEW CLIENTS to come to your site, potential customers who have no idea who you are.

Use this valuable title tag wisely as the space should contain a maximum of 64 characters. Make sure to include your top 2 or 3 services, your city and county, if possible. For example, instead of “Glen’s Delightful Chimney Cleaning” you should put “Chimney Cleaning, Chimney Sweeping, Tampa Bay, FL, Pasco County FL”.

4. Use actual TEXT, Not IMAGES.
On your web pages, especially on the home page of your small business website, make sure your content is typed out and visible to Google. Make sure, especially, that your business name, physical address and your phone number are live text! Google does not pick up text content in an image and it may as well be a blank page. Write out your content on every page and make sure your name, address and phone appear in the footer on every page.
5. Don’t be stingy with content, especially your home page.
1st cardinal sin… NO BLANK PAGES! Google doesn’t like blank pages. Another related and frequent mistake is to have pages with only 1 or 2 sentences on them. Make sure your pages have a minimum of 2-3 substantial paragraphs of content on them. On your home page, be careful not to have a huge, ugly page of just text. Instead, be sure to include a minimum of 2-3 paragraphs broken up with a couple of images. This content should include your targeted key words as well as your geographical area.

The 5 suggestions above can have a big impact on your ranking in search results and your business’s bottom line. Best of all, these SEO strategies are FREE!

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