Depending on your business, you may think you can get by without doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don’t fall into that trap! If you’re not doing SEO, you’ll quickly fall behind any competitors who are. Search engine rankings are crucial to getting your name out there. Here are a few tips small businesses can use to conduct strong on-page SEO, straight from the team at TIC Digital Marketing.

Be Intentional about What Goes on Your Website

You’ve probably heard that content is king, and that is 100% true when you’re populating your website. Pay special attention to the words and phrases you use, where you place them in relation to your headers, and whether or not you include pictures or videos. Do a bit of keyword research to find out what terms potential customers are using to find businesses in your industry. Your content is what search engine algorithms will be using to rank you, so be careful about what you choose to mention (and what you choose to leave out). Don’t forget to use keywords in “back-end” areas like meta descriptions and image alt-text. One more thing: you will be penalized for duplicate content, so make sure each page has something unique on it.

Use Keywords in Page Titles and Headers

Your titles and headers are especially relevant to search engine algorithms. This is where you can use your keyword research to conduct the most effective on-page SEO. Use terms like “Dog Groomer in Anytown, USA” as your page title to make the best use of keyword and local SEO strategies. Next, create headers using the H1 and H2 tags that contain your best keywords; this is where search engines will look first. The content under H1 and H2 tags is also critical to your success, so make sure to write a paragraph under each one that contains some of your keywords and geographical location.

Use Location in Site Content for Local Business

If you’re a local business, you’ll want to make sure customers and search engines know where you’re located. As we already mentioned, you can pepper in a few mentions of cities or towns in your service area to improve your rankings for searches in those places. You should also avoid mentioning location names that aren’t in your service area to avoid confusion. After all, you don’t want to waste your effort writing content for people who are unlikely to patronize your business.

Maintain a Blog

Search engines like to see sites that are updated regularly. A blog is a good way to keep your content fresh and keep your site high in the rankings. Come up with topics that are relevant to your industry and that will give you the opportunity to use your best keywords. It’s best to write around 500 words on any given topic. Keywords are good to use, but don’t overdo it. You want your blogs to be readable, or you may actually end up being penalized for spamming keywords.

TIC’s digital marketing team is always striving to stay ahead of the latest on-page SEO developments so we can achieve the best outcomes for our clients. If you don’t have the time or resources to conduct SEO in-house, we can help! Give us a call or use our online contact form to get in touch with us about inbound digital marketing, WordPress development and branding, or any other digital marketing advice you need!