Looking to grow your business in Greensboro? Perhaps you’re new to the area and are curious about what services it offers, or perhaps you’ve been here for a while and are curious about how to make the most out of your current position.

The key to effectively establishing yourself as a leader in your industry is through search engine optimization (SEO). If you’re unfamiliar, SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or blog in search results via the major search engines (i.e. Google, Bing, and Yahoo!).

What is SEO? Simply put, SEO is the use of certain techniques to improve the “organic” or “natural” ranking of websites in search results. Search engines favor websites which are naturally optimized, making them appear higher up on the list of search results. This, in turn, provides your business with more exposure and opportunities for growth.

There are three primary techniques which can be used to “naturally” achieve a high rank:

1. Build Authority

The first and arguably most important step to gaining authority is to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. To do this, you need to perform extensive research into prevailing industry standards and best practices. This will help you formulate your own opinions about what works and what doesn’t, as well as give you the knowledge to back up your claims. Furthermore, you should make sure that your industry credentials are officially acknowledged by putting them on your website, articles, and social media profiles.

Once you’ve established yourself as an expert, it’s time to focus on building authority within your industry. The best way to do this is through constant and consistent contribution to high-quality online resources. By creating quality content for websites and social media, you’ll be able to steadily build up your prestige within your industry as well as gain new followers.

2. Generate New Content

Just because you’ve established yourself as an expert in your industry doesn’t mean that all your content needs to be about your industry. In fact, it can be incredibly beneficial to educate your target audience about something completely different. To generate truly unique content, you should consider creating something that’s never been done before or combining two or more unrelated topics into one piece of content.

For example, maybe you’re an expert in real estate and property management, but have also taken an interest in interior design. In that case, you could write an article about how to design your own house with the help of an interior decorator. Not only will this help establish your expertise, but it’ll also expose your target audience to a new topic they might not have thought of before.

3. Optimize For The Search Engines

Now that you’ve got content on the web, it’s time to start optimizing it for search engines. To do this, you need to submit your articles to various platforms for review (i.e. The Google News Room, Hootsuite, and Blogger).

Each of these platforms has their own guidelines for what they consider “quality content,” so make sure that you follow their rules when publishing your articles. Depending on the size of your website, you might also need to consider hiring a professional webmaster to help with SEO.

With these basic guidelines in mind, you’re ready to start generating some truly excellent web content. When optimizing your content for search engines, make sure to use the keywords throughout the text, as well as in the headlines, sub-headlines, and in the body of the article. Furthermore, make sure to link back to key pages on your website (i.e. Home, About, Services, Contact), as well as other relevant pages.

As you can see, there are numerous benefits to having a high-quality, SEO-optimized web presence. If you want to learn more, simply visit any of the major search engines and do a search for SEO tips. You’ll discover a wealth of information which can help you get started or improve your existing practice.