How to Lay the Foundation for SEO When Starting Your Business

Search Engine Optimization is best achieved when built into a website and digital marketing strategy from the start. This avoids the hit and miss of creating content and then tweaking, adjusting and adapting, trying to improve it once the site is up. Here are the basic ways to lay the foundation for SEO when starting your business and marketing online.

Consider User Experience

Consider your website from the user’s point of view. Design your website so that it gives customers the information they want as quickly as possible.

If you have an e-commerce site, design it along the lines of the old retail adage of separating them from their money as soon as possible. Streamline checkout so that they click as few buttons as possible to seal the deal, whether ordering online or scheduling service.

Don’t forget to make sure the website loads within three seconds so that search engines and customers are happy with the site’s performance.

Do Keyword Research

It is important to conduct keyword research before you start building your website. The keywords people use to find your business should be integrated into the content of your website without seeming excessive or awkward.

Keyword research determines the search terms and volume of keywords relevant to your services and products. The services people seem to want as revealed in your research are the ones you should highlight on the website, and the keywords that are closely correlated to your high-value customers are the terms you need to build into your on-page SEO.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to search engine optimization for your website. For example, the key search terms that matter most to your customers should be integrated into the title and content of the page.

Furthermore, the key search terms and secondary search terms should be part of the page meta descriptions that come up to explain what the webpage is about. Use short title tags that still contain the key SEO terms.

Quality, Unique Content

Content must be both unique and high quality to rank well in search engines. One issue e-commerce sites run into is a lack of detail on product descriptions, such that search engines see the minor differences between product serial numbers and colour as insufficient variation, and, in the worse case scenario, hit the pages with a duplicate content penalty.

One solution is adding model numbers, compatible connectors, manufacturer serial numbers, and any additional product details customers are interested in.

Another way to add quality, unique content is to add both frequently asked questions and the answers to each product page. Now you have natural language queries on product pages that capture significant traffic and make each page unique.

Internal Links

When someone discusses links and SEO, the initial thought is external links back to your website. However, you need to address internal links as well. One version of this is studying the landing pages visitors are arriving on versus the ones they seem to want, and providing an immediately obvious link to the destination page on the landing page.

For example, searches on your flagship product may capture traffic on the older pages for version A, but a portion of the traffic is interested in the more recent version B. You can leave the version A page alone but put a prominent link near the top of the page clearly directing them to the product B page. On the product A page, you can include specs and technical support information for version A.

It is important to add relevant page links in your content, for example, if you have a main service that relates to another service which you mention in the content, it is best practice to add an internal link. Additionally, if customers are landing on content marketing pages, ensure that they can immediately move on to the shopping cart if they want to buy the item you’re selling.

Conclusion

All of these steps are essential if you want to start off your SEO efforts on the right foot. This will ensure that your site remains compliant with Google’s guidelines and allow you to slowly, but surely, start gaining positions in their rankings.

If you are interested in finding out more about SEO or want to inquire about how Matter Solutions can provide SEO services for your business, contact an expert today and discuss what we can do for you.