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Category: SEO
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Why your Small Business Should Focus on SEO!
Hey Forwardies,
It is time to learn why your Small Business should focus on SEO. It is essential to helping your Small Business grow. Your soon-to-be customers can’t choose you if they can’t find you!
Think of it this way. What do we all do when we are looking for a solution to a problem? We Google it! It has become our first instinct! Search Engines have the answers, and you want to be one of those answers! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help you make that happen and we are going to tell you how.
VISIBILITY is key!
The first and most important step is being visible when consumers go to search engines looking for what you can offer! Regardless of what you are selling you want to be found.
How does SEO help? The answer is simple…. Keywords. Keywords are what link the consumers search to your website. For example, Let’s say someone is searching for a new necklace. If necklace is a keyword on your website it would alert search engines that your website sells or discusses jewelry. Now that the search engine knows that your website is relevant to the consumer’s search, they will index your site and display it somewhere in the search results.
Rank HIGH when it comes to PAGE AUTHORITY and DOMAIN AUTHORITY and build the Credibility of your Business.
Now that we have discussed how Keywords make you visible in the search results, Let’s talk about the importance of where you rank on those results. You obviously want to be listed on the first page of the search results so that it is more likely that you are seen by the consumer. Keywords are very important, but SEO isn’t just about Keywords.
Page Authority and Domain Authority also impact where you show in the search results. Think of these two things as a ranking system by search engines to determine if you are a trusted and/or influential resource.
Page Authority ranks a single page on your website and Domain Authority ranks your whole website. The higher your ranking, the higher you are in the search results.
The fact of the matter is when you appear higher on the search engine results consumers automatically consider you a more credible source than those ranked lower than you.
Out rank your COMPETITORS!
The internet is vast and there are so many businesses like yours hoping they will show up in that search. Of course, you want to be the business showing up first in the results. We want that for you too. If other Small Business are using SEO to their advantage and you aren’t, then you are already a step behind. A good SEO strategy can help you out rank your competitors.
If you are looking to expand your reach, SEO is crucial in making that happen. Like we discussed before Keywords help consumers find your website. By cultivating a list of keywords that describe you and your business you will reach the audience that is also looking for you!
Expand your REACH and attract RELEVANT USERS!
Reaching more people means more visitors on your website. The more visitors you have the better you start to look in the eyes of Search Engines. So not only do you get added traffic, which is great for your business, but you are also improving your authority. This will help you show up higher in the search results next time.
Grow your WEB TRAFFIC, ENGAGMENT, & CONVERSIONS!
There is no better way to grow your website traffic than SEO! Now, you are thinking…. I use Social Media to build my website traffic. Why do I also need SEO? The simple answer is Social Media will only get you so far. Social Media Management is important but you are limited to only those who interact on social media and even then, you might not find the right audience.
The whole point of having a website is so consumers can find you and learn about you, your Business, and what products you have to offer. Of course, you also hope they will make a purchase but first they need to find you. This is where SEO comes in to help you build your organic search engine traffic.
The more Keywords you use -> the more you show up in search engines -> the more organic website traffic will increase.
Also keep in mind that you OWN your website and YOU control all the content. You don’t own your social media account and it my not always be around. You want to make sure your website is getting that organic traffic in case social media fails.
Exert influence on the BUYING CYCLE!
I don’t know about you but before I buy something I like to do my research. Where is research done these days? Search Engines! By using SEO to make sure you are showing up in those research results you can impact the buying cycle.
This is where things like blogs come into the picture. Now I know not everyone wants to write a blog, but it is great content marketing. Blogs are a great way to get keywords on your website, tell your audience about your products and services, and show your expertise in your business. Once you use SEO to get them to your website you can use the blog to influence their buying decisions.
The best EXPERIENCE for your VISITORS!
Another important factor in your SEO is your visitors’ experience. The better their experience the better you look in the eyes of search engines. Keywords get them to your site, but their experience when they get there is what makes them stay and keep coming back for more. This is the part of SEO where you focus on speeding up your website and making sure all aspects of your website are responsive (meaning they look good and function properly across all devices).
If your website takes too long to load or they can’t view all the content on their phones, tablets, laptops etc. Then consumers will leave your site quickly. The rate at which they leave is called the Bounce Rate. Search Engines want to see people going to your website, but they also care about how long they stay there.
Anything you can do to improve that Bounce Rate will boost your SEO.
RESULTS can be MEASURED!
The final step to SEO is measuring your results. Since search engine algorithms are constantly changing, you need to be able to track the results of your efforts and make adjustments when needed. The good news is there are several methods you can use to measure your results.
For one, Installing Google Analytics on your website can help you track the traffic to your website and determine which keywords are leading consumers to your website. In some cases, you can even put a monetary value to those leads and compare that to your SEO costs.
Now that you have a better understanding of why Small Businesses should Focus on SEO, it’s time to take ACTION…. continue your research, start improving your SEO yourself, or reach out to us and we can help you get started!
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Social Media Strategy: Sharing Our Small Business Growth Hack!
A social media strategy is important to your overall growth plan! Here are 5 key takeaways from our strategy and proof in the numbers!
Our Social Media Strategy has led to an
over 15000% growth on Instagram Reach!1. Set Your Social Media Strategy Goals!
We love a good SMART goal for our social media strategy! Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals are a great way to give yourself goals with a purpose. Once you’ve laid out your goals, you can write down steps to accomplish the goal(s)! Taking baby steps is sometimes the best thing you can do, but being able to watch how those steps affect measurable factors lets your stay flexible and pivot to the best action plan!
2. Plan, plan, plan!
Speaking of planning, if you go into anything unprepared, you’re going to put a lot of energy into a lot of nothing! Creating content can be a chore, and a lot of small businesses don’t feel like they have the time or energy to put into it! When they do think of their social media content, it’s a last-minute, rushed task that makes the audience feel like they aren’t worth your efforts… We at Forward Digital Marketing sit down once a month to write out a very overarching plan to guide us. This plan is not rigid, but it gives us a base to build off of!
3. … But don’t over plan!
The reason we don’t give ourselves a hard and fast plan is because trends change fast on social media! In our monthly plan, we create a set amount of evergreen content and then leave room for trends that pop up throughout the month! Another great tip for your small business is to set “fallback” content days! Don’t know what to post on a Thursday? Have an already set theme for that day that you can quickly grab or make content for without feeling like you are starting from scratch.
For example, we at Forward Digital Marketing have Wednesday scribbled down as “Trend Alert Wednesday!” When we do not have any content plans for that day, we can quickly default to doing a trend breakdown. This saves us a few minutes and helps keep us sane during a busy week of content making!
4. Check Your Insights!
Once we’ve posted anything, we check out insights! Now, we do this for a living so how often we check is going to be greater than how often you need to check! When posting content, you should always look back at the insights 24 hours and 7 days later. This will give you a better understanding of what your audience likes and does not like. If you keep posting things that are getting low engagement, your audience is going to zone you out.
If you watch your insights and see that carousel posts are more successful with your following, then in your plan you should add more posts like that! Keeping an eye on the analytics is going to give you valuable, measurable feedback! This helps you reach your SMART goals set at the beginning of the process.
Organic growth is growth that has NO MONEY put into advertising! 5. Remember, It’s the Internet.
One of the biggest takeaways with social media is that it is the internet… the internet can be a wild place full of unique personalities, robots, and ever-changing algorithms. What works one month, may not work as well the next! It can be an overwhelming place of confusion, but as long as you are putting in the time to plan and watch your insights, you’ll be more prepared to face whatever is changing! Another way to stay on top of all of the news is to follow trusted industry experts!
Most of us are on social media personally, so why not add a few educational and helpful small business tools to your feed! Forward Digital Marketing is one to follow! We work hard to research the changes, the growing pains, the successes, and the trends so you don’t have to! We take one more thing off of your to-do list. Still, feeling overwhelmed by the idea of building and posting content monthly, weekly, or daily?! Hire us as your social media management team! We build your monthly posting schedule based on your insights and audience. You give us a few photos and we do the rest! It’s just one more way Forward Digital Marketing can serve you!
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Discover if Your Website Bounce Rate is Good, Great!
Driving traffic to your website is a worthwhile cause! But what happens once they get to your site? Do they stick around or bounce right back off, driving your bounce rate up?
The bounce rate is the percentage of single, individual visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. Your site’s bounce rate is an important insight that gives you a look into how engaging your site content is.
Having a bad bounce rate could indicate there are issues within your website! It could also mean that your content is just not any good. Let’s work through the good, the great, and the could be better bounce rates and learn how to improve yours!
Bounce Rate is Defined as “the percentage of individual visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.” This is different from an exit rate, in which the user only leaves the page, not the site. What’s a Good Bounce Rate?
A good bounce rate is based on your website’s needs, so giving an exact number is not so easy. A bounce rate between 56% to 70% is on the high end, but not the end of the world! If your website is built to drive traffic to other sites, this rate might be right where you need to be!
A bounce rate between 25%-30% is unusually good… but it can happen! Don’t be spoiled by these numbers, because they are not easily maintained. Anything under 40%, that’s not caused by a broken Google Analytics install, is something to be very proud of! This is proof that your website is professionally built, well engaging, and meeting the needs of its users.
Where the majority of good website bounce rates will fall is in the 35%-55% range. Once it starts to creep up towards the 60% range, it’s time to take a look at individual pages’ bounce rates and see what is causing the rate to spike.
How Can I Fix My Website’s High, Climbing Bounce Rates?
So you’re bounce rates still aren’t where you’d like them to be… Here are some things that could be affecting your bounce rate negatively:
- – Your Page Speed is LOW!
- – Annoying, Badly Designed Pop-ups
- – Website is not User Friendly
- – Page, Meta Titles Are Not Optimized
- – Page is Blank, Loading Error
- – Content Lacks Quality…
- – Pages Aren’t Mobile-Friendly– Unnecessary Plugins
- – Google Analytics is not Set-up Correctly
Slow Loading Pages:
The most common contributor to slow loading pages are unoptimized images. If you upload a large photo to your website, just to scale it down, you could be taking up valuable bandwidth space that is slowing down your site!
Poor Design:
When someone enters your site, are they automatically bombarded with large pop-ups, chatbots, or screens held hostage until the user has given you something? Do six invisible videos automatically start playing with sound? Do page buttons only work when you click the text just the right way or does the text wrap in weird ways under images, making it impossible to figure out what you’re trying to tell the audience?! Though all of this may seem extreme and never done on purpose, it could be what is driving your visitors away!
Not Mobile Friendly:
Does your website do all sorts of back flips when a user views it with their mobile phone or tablet? The number one factor is that your website is not mobile responsive! Mobile responsive website automatically correct proportions to fit the screen it is viewed on. Rather than designing layouts that can be “scaled-down,” website designers have to think about each element individually!
Will the text still show up and be legible? How can a user navigate to different pages? Does the mobile site have the same content as the other devices? All of this goes into creating a fully user-friendly mobile site… and which is so important when over 57% of all site visits are now through mobile devices!
Bounce Rate and SEO
Using correct keywords draws in the correct user! If a user is looking for rubber duckies and finds your site, which is selling pineapples, they won’t stick around very long! Maybe your page keyword is “yellow” and when that user is looking up “yellow rubber duckies,” your site pops up! It’s great that your website is found, but it is found by the wrong consumer… by doing the research and optimizing your website pages to the max, you attract individuals who are actually looking for sites like yours! This means they won’t bounce as fast because they are genuinely interested in the products, services, or information you offer.
Bottom Line: Define Your Bounce Rate Goals and Dig In!
The bounce rate is an important analytic to keep your eye on. It may not look like ours, your neighbors, or [insert large corporation here], but that’s because the goal of each website may be different! Be sure to set realistic goals and watch your data to figure out what works and what is driving your audience away. It might be as simple as fixing your keywords, or it could be as complicated as rebuilding poorly performing pages!
Don’t know how to check your bounce rate? Click here so that we can help you set up your Google Analytics! After set up, you’ll be able to monitor bounce rate and way more! Already have Google Analytics set up, but don’t know where the breakdown is? Let’s run a website audit to get you the information you need to optimize!
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Instagram’s Tips and Tricks for Small Business Growth, April 2022
Here is Instagram’s latest tips for “HOW TO GROW AND SCALE YOUR SMALL BUSINESS!”
View the PDF here to download Instagram’s small business growth tips and tricks.
See how we’ve made it into content! You can do the same with things! Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to learn how to make great content. Contact with us to see how we can help you make it even better!