Learn how SEO enhances your website's visibility, credibility, and user engagement for sustained online success.
Your website is the closest thing you have to a home online however, simply setting up a website isn’t enough to reach your audience.
To attract visitors, you need to promote your business, content, and activities which includes ensuring your site shows up prominently on Google and other search engines where potential customers are looking for the products or services you offer. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) becomes essential.
Google is one key aspect of content distribution and our Marketing 3-4-5™ approach.
SEO encompasses the strategies and techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), making it more visible to those searching for relevant keywords. But why is this visibility so crucial?
Visibility and Ranking
When your website ranks highly for the right keywords or phrases, it’s the digital equivalent of having a prime location in the busiest part of town.
By appearing on the first page of Google, you're more likely to attract organic traffic — visitors who find your website naturally, without you having to pay for advertising and any paid advertising you invest in becomes more effective.
'Best Practices' to help improve your Search Engine Optimization
Search engines take a while to find your website, but there are small things you can do to help them. Here are some recommendations on how to improve your SEO.
Benefits of Formatting
One way to enhance your view to search engines is to incorporate keywords and formatting into your website and your content.
If there are keywords that you want used to direct traffic to your site, then you need to be sure you use them regularly in your website, and in key places!
When adding text to your pages and your content, using style headings, bulleted lists, and even bold text makes it more visible to search engines.
Styled formatting like Headings and the various other options available in our text editor can greatly improve the way search engines 'see' your site.
Every area you add text to your website has full text editor capabilities, for example:
- Content blocks on your web pages
- Description text in your Event Posts
- Text added to your Blog Posts
Boosting Your Visibility with Locable
The built-in tools in your Locable account are designed to develop online collaborations with other businesses and nonprofits in your area that you already support or have a relationships with. We call this Cross-Promotion.
More and more organizations are starting to recognize the importance of these online partnerships. We are seeing more content online about how these collaborations are the key to success. Here is one example.
When you participate in cross-promotions with Locable, you expand your online reach and your business becomes visible to an entire audience that may not otherwise find you.
This cross-promotion increases traffic to your website through your Local Connections™ as well as providing valuable citations to help Google and other search engines better understand your business and content. You can read more about this here.
Credibility, Trust, and the User Experience
Websites that appear higher in search results are often perceived as more trustworthy and credible by users. SEO helps to establish that authority by optimizing on-page elements like content and site structure.
But SEO isn't just about pleasing styles and algorithms. It’s also about creating a better experience for your website visitors.
Google values user experience, and websites that provide helpful, high-quality content that meets the needs of searchers are rewarded with better rankings.
Content can be focused on announcements, news, how-to's, recent projects, and much more - in general, this is referred to as Business Blogging.
We recommend you regularly add content to your website by quickly creating blog posts using the guided Business Blogging that is built right into your Locable account.
Our guided blogging tool is designed to help you create more dynamic content with prompts and structure built right in.
This automatic structure makes creating blog posts easy and effective! You can read more about this here.
Insight into Customer Behavior
Through SEO, can gain valuable insights into your audience's preferences and behaviors.
Tools like Google Analytics let you see what keywords drive traffic, how visitors interact with your website, and what content they find most engaging.
You can add Analytics tools right into your website to better track your traffic. For more information and how to set that up, click here.
Competitive Advantage
If your competitors are using SEO and you’re not, they have a significant advantage in capturing the attention of your shared target market.
With a strong SEO strategy, you can compete at the same level or even surpass your competitors in search rankings.
Long-Term Success
While SEO takes time and effort, it’s an investment in your website's long-term success. Unlike paid advertising which stops the moment you stop paying, SEO can provide lasting benefits and continuous traffic.
SEO is the backbone of a successful online presence. It not only helps your website become more discoverable but also enhances user engagement and builds your website's reputation. Start implementing effective SEO practices today, and watch your website's performance soar.