We know SEO isn't always easy but here's three things you can get done by lunchtime today!
With the start of a new year, it's time to update your digital strategy and start afresh on your SEO. So let's get right into it do some SEO before lunch. Ready? Let's go;
9am - 10.00am: Get online reviews.
Online reviews are crucial. These can appear on pages like Google+ or Yelp. Though you can't monitor exactly what is said about the business in them, they do provide valuable inbound links. To utilise these effectively:
- Monitor what people are saying about the business
- Respond to negative reviews diplomatically
- Encourage customers who have had a positive experience to review you
To achieve this you can ask satisfied customers to leave Google Reviews. Gaining at least 5 positive reviews on Google will provide a small SEO boost and can be accomplished by either requesting for them via email or phone.
10.00am - 10.15am: Coffee break!
10.15am - 11.15am: Health check your website.
There are heaps of great online tools that will analyse your website and give you tips that can be implemented to improve a range of aspects on your site.
The first is Google's Page Speed test. This will let you know how fast your site is on both mobile and desktop, giving you an overall score out of 100. It will also tell you how to fix anything that may be dragging you're speed and hence your rankings down. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Secondly, the HubSpot website grader is excellent to use for an overall website performance analysis. It will look at your website, whether it's optimised for mobile, how well it is tracking for SEO and it's security. Whilst also giving you implementable tips. https://website.grader.com/
Finally, the Google Mobile-Friendly test will check whether your website is mobile friendly. Most importantly it can teach you how a Google bot will view your page. https://www.google.com.au/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Now that you've completed your health check you should have a nice list of action items for SEO over the coming months. But for now, let's put that aside and do some writing.
11.15am - 12.30pm: Write a blog.
Blogging is one of the most powerful SEO tools at your disposal. Blogs are perfect for boosting both on-site and off-site SEO. However your blogs need to be interesting and relevant for your audience.
It is not enough to have a good blog; there are heaps of those on the net. Your blog needs to be special. And if you can do this people will share it on social media and link to your content on their site.
For today's blog let's follow this step-by-step process:
- Select a product or service you want to promote
- Make a list of all the terms - 'Keywords' - you think people might use when looking for this product/service online (for ideas, check out Googles Keyword Planner Tool)
- Ask yourself, what is a key problem this product/service solves?
- Write a blog article that discusses the problem and how this type of product/service helps solve it. The trick here is to do this without specifically mentioning your product/service anywhere.
- Include your keywords in the copy early and often
- Write a snappy, catchy heading that uses the keywords
- Add a relevant and intriguing header image
- Share your post on social media
Nice work! You just wrote a blog in an hour! Wouldn't it be great if you did that every week? The most successful business blogs post a minimum of once per week.
12.30pm: Time for lunch.
Well done, you're half a day down and you've already made a positive impact on your business for the year ahead.
What do you think, ready to tackle your SEO in 2016 and bring new customers to your website? We thought so. So we have made you 'The Ultimate Guide to SEO in 2016'. Thank us later.
