How Strategic SEO Helps Small Businesses In A Big Way

The SEO market in the world has become extremely lucrative for small businesses that want to expand their reach and grab a wider audience. SEO companies offer unbeatable advantages because they offer reasonable rates and excellent brand management strategies. Cost-conscious small business owners can now access value for money advertising and marketing.

Here are the real benefits of opting for quality SEO solutions providers, if you want your small business to flourish:

#1 Create an SEO optimized, user-friendly website to access a wider target audience

SEO will help you to create faster, better and more intuitive websites for users. Search engine optimization is not only about high search engine rankings, but increased user reach as well. Following excellent on the page and off page optimization strategies will create many advantages for your small business.

#2 Strong prospect and lead generation become really easy

The main reason to have an official website in the first place is to expand and diversify your clients. Small businesses that grow always have web optimization that meets their needs. A web optimized site using SEO friendly content will get you more traffic and targeted visitors which then translates into more customers.

#3 Expand your company’s reach, explore new markets

Despite so many geographical barriers, SEO has made it possible to transcend boundaries, cultures, and nationalities while offering your products and services for sale. Web and SEO solutions have made it possible for the Internet to become a global marketplace. A successful SEO campaign can help you to access fresh markets and new economies. With social media channels and mobile-only marketplace booming thanks to rising smartphone sales, SEO has become the modern-day marketing must-have tool.

#4 Get better conversion rates

What makes an SEO friendly website a company asset? Fast speed, easy usability, and compatibility with mobile as well as tablet devices make such websites a real plus point for small businesses. What does this mean? Well, customers will find it easier to access your products and services leading to better conversions or visiting traffic ready to make purchases, which will then boost company growth and profits.

#5 Build brand awareness, get higher search engine rankings

A real advantage of ranking high on search engines is that creating a powerful brand story becomes easy. If your small business or startup is aiming for instant brand recognition, SEO can help in many ways. People will come to your site and trust your brand, thanks to SEO content that will inspire confidence through keyword, competitor and ranking analysis as well as strong lead generation and increased market visibility.

Having an SEO friendly website is the virtual calling card your small business needs to access large gains. Prosperity, better prospects, increased ROI, phenomenal sale volume- these are just some of the many positive milestones your small business can access through SEO.

Using Targeted Keywords to Rank High

You are constantly hearing people speak about search engine optimization (SEO) and although you may have a basic understanding about what SEO is and how it works, you may not realize that you can use it in an extremely pointed, customized manner for optimal results.

Looking at your keywords and choosing the most effective ones
The truth is that SEO, which is an amazingly effective approach, does not always produce the results that you want for your business. You may use several different keywords and then discover that those keywords for which you have a particular affinity did not make it to the top (or near the top) of the search engine’s pages. That must be incredibly frustrating for you. Well, that means that you have less control over your content once it is posted than you may have thought. However, there are measures that you can take to swing the results in favor of your business.

You need to understand that there is such a thing as over-optimizing your content for the search engines. If you over-optimize your content, it may produce results that are the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. However, here are some suggestions that should help you to achieve the results that you want to achieve.

Determine your baseline rankings: The first thing that you need to determine, before you do anything else, is exactly where your business appears in the search engines. You will have certain keywords in mind so that is exactly what you need to check. Figure out where those keywords factor into the rankings and if the performance is not what you want, you will take steps to make that happen. Your baseline is extremely important in this situation. You must crawl and then walk before you can run. If you don’t have your baseline in mind, exactly how are you going to measure your other successes? You won’t have anything to compare them to. The easiest way to begin this process is by searching for your keywords in the search engines (Google, for example). If you don’t want to do it manually, there are several tools that allow you to determine your rankings and you can automate that process. Of course, you will need to be patient. Your rankings will probably not jump from a low position to an extremely high one overnight. However, you will see positive changes and your baseline is essential because you need that jumping off point.

Examine the differences: When you enter your keyword into the keyword tool, you should pay attention to two particular things. First, you will want to pay attention to how many different ways your keywords appear. The other thing that you will want to notice is how your keywords rank against other similar keywords that your competitors have posted. Doing the background work is extremely important and is a big contributor to your success. It will allow you to understand if your keyword is too complex and it will give you an idea of other possible keywords that you can use instead. Once you have entered your keyword, you should take note of the other keywords that the search engine has suggested as alternatives. They will fall right under your keyword. Finally, you should pay attention to the related searches that appear at the bottom of your page.

Examine the results that you expected and revise, if necessary: There is a possibility that the expectations that you set for your keyword results are too high or unrealistic in some other way. The fact is that if your keyword appears at the top of the search engine page, there will be a lot of other keywords (and competitors) that will try to knock your keyword down from its position. Not only should you look at your keyword on the search engine page but you should also pay close attention to the other keywords that are around your keyword. Click on those other keywords so that you can compare the content to what you are saying and what you represent. This is part of your research and you will find that it is well worth the effort that you are going to put forth. You will find that, when it comes to the effectiveness of your keywords, your perception may be completely different from how the search engines view those keywords. Unfortunately, it won’t do you any good if you ignore the search engines because they count for a lot.
Conclusion
Keywords and key phrases are extremely important in your content. Your keywords must be relevant to what you are doing and what you represent. You will want to pay attention to increasing traffic, the importance of back links, and increasing trustworthiness and credibility. However, be careful not to over-stuff your content with keywords. That will be almost as bad as not having keywords in your content. Learn how to achieve an effective balance that will work well for your business.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.

Facebook Advertising – How To Make Your Business A Success

The fact that Facebook has over a billion registered users makes it one of the main social platforms that you cannot ignore when it comes to advertising. It is indeed a fertile ground where you can easily put up your ads and be able to reach out to billions of potential customers. Regardless of whether you have your own business website, Facebook provides you with the necessary tools to create ads through which you can easily attract Facebook users back to your website for your business success.

Business Exposure

Facebook advertising literally means exposing your business to millions of potential customers who access the site everyday. The ad creation tool that Facebook puts at your disposal provides you with a very good opportunity to expose your business and reap the benefits that online business provides.

Targeted Advertising

One great way that you can make your business on Facebook is to take advantage of the site’s targeted advertising. Facebook allows you to target as specific segment of its users based on age, interest, location and much more. Facebook advertising also makes it possible for Facebook to place your ad(s) only on pages whose users mention specific keywords.

Customer Loyalty

Unlike with creating and promoting your business/product ad(s) on Facebook that cost you a minimal amount, establishing a loyal customer base on the site does not cost you anything except your time. Establishing a loyal customer base on the site is in no doubt one of the most effective ways to make your business a success. Just like with other business owners who have done it, you can easily create a fan page that makes it possible for you to interact directly with both your existing and potential customers.

How you can make your business a success using your Facebook business fan page is not limited to interacting with your customers. It is on the page that you can also announce any special offers or promotions. This is also the page on which you have the opportunity to launch new products/service.

Low Advertising Cost

You certainly need to advertise your business to reach out to a large population of potential customers. Even when advertising is indeed necessary, the need to keep advertising costs low should remain top on your mind. Compared to advertising in any other way, Facebook advertising is very cost effective. It gives you the opportunity to make your business a success by allowing you to specify cost of advertising you are prepared to incur when advertising.

Effective Facebook advertising requires that you remain conversant with any changes that Facebook adopts. For instance, Facebook has revised its image policy relating to advertisements. The policy states that ad text cannot take up in excess of 20% of ad image. Any ad created contrary to this policy is automatically banned. Because you need to focus on running your business, it may be necessary to engage the service of a social media marketing firm to run your Facebook advertising ad(s) to make your business a success.

Hints and Tips On How To Advertise Your Website

This article is for website and blog owners who are looking for hints and tips on how to help promote their website and get it noticed. This article does not cover every aspect of how to promote your website, however it does give you some good starting points on which to build your online presence. Follow these easy and simple tips:

Content.

Not just content, but high quality content is now what is needed to help improve your search engine optimization (SEO). Without good content your website could go unseen. High quality unique content tops the list of the most effective ways to improve your online presence from; lead generation, increased traffic and search engine rankings. It is also one of the hardest aspects to get right!

Connections.

Submitting your website to other high ranking sites and blogs will help you gain back links to your website. Google and other search engines measure and rank your website by the importance and quality of other websites linking to you. Care needs to be taken where these links are placed and you need to be sure you are not associated with spammy directories or link farms, these types of sites can have a detrimental effect on your rankings.

Social Media.

Social has become more and more important and is a great way of promoting your company. Choose the platforms that work best for you. You don’t need to be using all the social media tools, however to protect your brand it is advisable to secure your domain name across as many as you can.

Join Google +.

Google+ could be classed in the same section as social media but as it is a Google tool I feel it needs to have a section of its own. Many business have been slow on the up take of joining Google+, but these business are missing a trick, don’t miss out. If Google is here to stay then so is Google+! By using Google+ and adding authorship to your site your image and Google+ details will appear in the search results making your listing stand out from your competitors.

Images and Videos.

The use of images is a powerful tool and should not be over looked. Make sure all the images you upload to your website and blog are a good size and high quality. Powerful visuals are essential to grab the reader’s attention. Informative videos are also an available tool and can generate traffic to your website, more and more videos are showing in the organic listings for keyword searches. You can also link your Google+ account to your YouTube channel.