Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has great benefits for businesses with respect to consumer searches. Being one of the first websites your potential customers see when they conduct a search enhances your chances of business success. For small businesses, this is a cost effective way to get noticed by customers.
There is much hype on SEO lately and most businesses are getting their websites optimised for search engines. While doing this can truly bring many benefits to your business, it has to be done right. If you get SEO wrong, you may end up hurting your small business. Several ways businesses go about search engine optimisation the wrong way include:
1. Search engine optimisation is for big businesses: Shying away from SEO because you think it is not right for your small business is a wrong move. Small business owners tend to think this way and don’t pay attention to SEO for their websites. There are too many people online looking to make a purchase for you not to put your website in a place where they can find it. Therefore, it is wrong to assume that your business cannot benefit from SEO.
2. Wrong keywords: If your business name is Nancy’s Creations, don’t assume internet users will easily find you. Supposing Nancy’s Creations makes handcrafted gift baskets, your keywords should be about the product. You need to understand the words people commonly use to search for products like yours. You have to put yourself into your customers’ mind, and figure out the keywords they will use to find you and your services or products. You can also look at the keywords your competitors use as a guide for creating yours.
3. Buying links: Small businesses often fall prey to bad links especially when they are trying DIY SEO. Paid links can look very attractive to small business owners and may initially generate good leads for the business. Google however penalises for this. They say “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results”. However, there are some paid links that Google allows, but they have to be links that do not improve your SEO.
4. The less, the merrier: “When it comes to SEO, your keywords should be specific, and concise, however, this does not always translate to few words” says Brian Hong at Infintech Designs. “If you are a spa that provides luxury spa treatments to upscale and high-end customers, you should not optimise generic spa keywords. Rather, narrow down your keywords, which might mean that they become longer”. Optimising for “luxury spa treatment for upscale New Orleans residents” will work better than just “spa treatments in New Orleans”.
5. Content: Building great content is not about repeating your keywords. When you do that, it flags off warnings in search engines as their algorithms will detect that you are trying to play a fast one on them. If detected by the algorithms, your search engine rankings will fall. You should craft content that your visitors will truly want to read. It might be a hassle for small business to focus on content creation but it is worth it. Doing otherwise simply affects customer retention. Your content needs to be unique and it should speak directly to and resonate with your customers.
6. Abandoning your website: Your website needs constant updating. Google algorithms search and penalise for things like ‘out of date’ information and duplicated content. The algorithms also search your website to see if it contains broken links and missing images. If you have taken down content and somewhere else on your site there is a link that points to it, you need to take the link out. You have to be alert and attentive to how the links on your website function and ensure that your content remains relevant and up to date.
SEO can really benefit your business when done the right way. Do extensive research and ensure that you are not harming your business with your SEO strategies.