The internet has opened doors for countless businesses. However, finding a niche in an oversaturated market can be quite the challenge. Unless you’re already well-established, marketing your business online means proving yourself to be a viable source of income. Even then, your chances of commercial success are greatly diminished by the vast number of businesses striving for online presence. To rise above the competition, you need a winning strategy.

The good news is there are plenty of ways to grow your online marketing and digital marketing without risking your finances. With a little bit of creativity and know-how, you can put together a profitable campaign that will bring in the customers and grow your bottom line.

The Importance of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s position in search engines for relevant keywords. Naturally, increasing your online presence is a top priority for any business. To better understand how SEO can benefit your business, let’s take a quick look at how search engines work.

As a potential customer types in a query into the search box of their favorite search engine, various matching web pages appear on their screen. According to Google, the organic results are presented in order of relevance and popularity. When a visitor clicks on a result, they are taken to a new page where they can explore the details of the product or service that appeared in the sponsored results.

In order to appear in the search results, your page needs to meet certain criteria set by the search engine. These include:

• The text on your page must be relevant to the user’s query
• Your page must have content that’s valuable and engaging
• Your page must have a healthy number of links leading to it from other sites
• Your website must be accessible (not overloaded with ads or pop-ups)
• Your site must be secure (SSL encrypted)
• Your webpage must have a human editor (not a computer)”
• You must have a physical address (no PO boxes allowed)
• Your phone must have a dialing code (no 011 area codes)
• You must provide email addresses (if you can’t provide a functional email address, you may want to consider providing a digital marketing email address)
• Your website can’t be banned from appearing in the search results by a webmaster (unless you’re intentionally breaking rules)
• Your website can’t be listed as a spam site by a webmaster (unless you’re intentionally breaking rules)
• You can’t fake your site’s content (most search engines catch this)
• Your website can’t be a megaphone for sale (no misleading or deceptive advertising)
• Your website must not contain malware or be a doorway to a server hosting malware (this is also known as a “rogue server”)
• If you’re a vendor, you must disclose any relationships with providers of malware (e.g., hacker tools or spamming services)

If you meet these criteria, your page will appear in the search results. Essentially, you’re aiming for the #1 spot on the list.

Grow Your Organic Traffic With These Tips

Now that you have a general idea of what SEO is and the importance of an optimized website, let’s take a look at some tips to help you grow your organic traffic.

Focus On Researching Relevant Keywords

An important first step to effective SEO is researching relevant keywords. A keyword is a word or phrase that someone uses to find content or products on the web. You’ll want to enter these keywords into the various free tools online that can help you find the right matches for your content. When you find a relevant match, you can adjust your page’s content to better match the words that people are typing into the search bar.

Curate Content For International Readers

If you’re planning to sell your product or service internationally, you’ll want to make sure that all your content is suitable for worldwide consumption. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is by using a tool like Google Translate which can translate your content into more than 50 different languages. Having a multilingual content strategy is also highly advantageous when it comes to SEO as many countries outside of the U.S. use different search engines which may prefer different content.

Create Short And Sweet Blog Posts

A blog post must be around 500 words or less. This allows for more readability and shorter download times for the user. Additionally, keeping posts under 500 words facilitates easy expansion of topics in the future as you won’t have run out of things to write about.

Use Videos Wherever Possible

Wherever possible, you want to utilize videos in your marketing efforts. Videos add an additional dimension of information which can help your target audience make better buying decisions. They also allow you to interact with your audience via live chats and videos posted to social media channels.

Additionally, videos can be used to great effect in SEO. Search engines like Google take video content into consideration when ranking pages. If you want to improve your page’s organic traffic, consider creating video content for your blog or social media channels.

Measure The Effect Of Your SEO Strategy

To determine the effectiveness of your SEO strategy, you’ll need to analyze the results of your efforts. There are numerous keyword tools available online that can help you find keywords that are driving traffic to your website and help you identify areas that you can enhance.

You can also use Google Trends to track the popularity of keywords over time. This way, you can gauge the effectiveness of your strategy and make necessary adjustments as needed. For instance, if one of your key phrases is driving a lot of interest and your page’s rank starts to improve as a result, you’ll know that you’re on the right track.

Now that you’re equipped with the basics of how SEO works and the importance of an optimized site, let’s take a look at how you can use SEO to grow your digital marketing.

Get The Most From Your Link Building

One of the most important factors in SEO is link building. This involves getting other websites to link to your page, blog post, or webstore. You can do this through guest blogging, social media outreach, and more.

To get the most from your link building, create high-quality content that people are likely to share. The more high-quality content you have, the more likely other websites are going to want to link to you. When someone links to your content, they’re displaying its popularity and demonstrating its relevance in their own community.

Grow Your Audience By Using Digital Marketing

You can use digital marketing in many ways to grow your audience. However, to ensure that you’re attracting the right audience, consider using various online tools to research prospective customers. You can also use social media to engage with people who show interest in your product or service. Traditional marketing, such as print and television ads, can also be used to attract new audiences.

Boost Your SEO With These Tricky Tips

Now that you’re equipped with the basics of how SEO works and the importance of an optimized site, let’s take a look at some tips to help you boost your SEO.

Use Keywords In Your Headline

As discussed above, keywords are important in SEO. When you’re writing your headline, you want to incorporate these keywords into the text as much as possible without the text being too cluttered. The simpler the headline, the more readability for the user. Keep the keywords close to the start of the headline, but don’t overuse them. An overused keyword may become generic and less relevant to users searching for your content.

Use Longer Sentences

With the exception of the first two sentences, every other sentence in your content should be of equal length. Shorter sentences indicate that you’re writing for a younger audience or someone who isn’t skilled in English. When writing for an older audience or someone who is, you want to keep the sentences short and sweet. This helps keep the attention of the reader while still maintaining a sense of flow throughout your content.