The shift from traditional to digital marketing is widely seen and felt across industries. Companies nowadays can’t get far with only traditional marketing and advertising methods. In fact, the best way to succeed and reach out to a broader audience is to leverage the power of search engines.
But with everyone taking their marketing to the digital platform, it’s getting harder to be “at the top” of your industry.
To stand out, you need to be proactive and observe SEO best practices.
Hire Professional SEOs
If you’re not a digital marketing expert, hire one. In Virginia, various initiatives are being held to help small businesses compete with big companies on the online marketing plane. The West Virginia Small Business Development Center (WV SBDC)’s SBDC Day celebration is one example. The event featured coaches and mentors who shared insights on various business concerns, including marketing. Events like this connect small players with Virginia’s SEO service providers who can offer them the same services their bigger competitors enjoy.
Start with On-Page Optimization
To be fully competitive online, you need to have a website. It’s not enough to simply have one, though; you also need to have it optimized.
Resist the temptation to overload your site with flashy images and videos. These consume a huge amount of bandwidth and will slow down your page loading time. Slow-loading websites do nothing to improve the online experience of your prospective customers. Additionally, search engine ranking algorithms take into consideration a website’s page loading speed. If yours is too slow, you will likely be pushed down the SERPs to make room for faster websites.
Create Quality Content
Populate your website with original, well-written, and informative content. In the earliest days of SEO, you had web pages that were just haphazardly crammed with keywords—and it worked. These pages didn’t give much value to users, however, which prompted search engines to make content quality a ranking factor. Keyword stuffing is now considered a black hat strategy that might cause your website to drop significantly in the rankings—a death sentence for a business’ digital marketing efforts.
Use Long Tail and Conversational Keywords
The fiercest battles for search engine rankings are done through keywords. The competition can be tough for popular keywords and industries. One way to circumvent the competition is to use long-tail keywords instead. Long tails have more than three words and often suggest a question or statement. These are less competitive and could let you rank for broad searches. Ranking for long-tail keywords can give you a better chance of landing on Page 1.
Maximize Paid Ad Platforms
There are many ways to deploy your ads online. PPC or pay per click is one example. It charges you a small amount every time someone clicks on your ad. It’s a great way to get exposure as it encourages people to click through to get a perk (e.g., free ebook, exclusive membership). CPA or cost per acquisition is another. With this type of ads, you only pay when a customer completes an action (e.g., buying a product). These are more expensive as they can ensure a return on investment. Either can help deliver your marketing message effectively online.
There are many things that you need to do to find success online. Stick to the best practices and consult an expert in website optimization so your marketing will be cost-effective and you can get the results you want.