With the holiday shopping season (and 2023 wow what the heck) right around the corner, it’s a great time to ensure SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is working in your favour. While social media analytics are important to keep in mind when building your online presence, SEO is just as important but often overlooked. Black Friday and the Christmas holidays are on the horizon and it's imperative to be ready to make those purchasing conversions as easy as possible for your business.
If you’re new to digital marketing, SEO might not be something you’ve dealt with as often as social media or E-commerce, but it should be a key element of your strategy. The better your SEO is, the more likely you are to be discovered in potential clients’ Google searches. So, let’s talk about 5 ways you can boost your SEO (and by extension, your online presence!)
Optimize your keywords
When dealing with SEO, you always want to ensure that your keyword usage is up to par. This is important because these words are what will cause your website to appear in searches and even improve your standing on the search engine’s results page. In the interest of SEO, you want to double down on alternative words and phrases rather than repeating the same keywords over and over. Quality is always more important than quantity here.
A great way to change things up is putting yourself in the shoes of the people you’re trying to attract, what they would realistically be typing into that search bar, and finding a way to throw that into your website or even your post copy on social.
Keep your titles SEO-friendly
This is the rule of thumb for your small business' content and online platforms. Content is pretty self-explanatory since you want to be certain that your post copy is engaging but still utilizing keywords relevant to your brand. In recent years, we’ve seen a jump in 2-point title structures particularly in blogs and articles. Remember: A hook and explanation using SEO-heavy keywords is the easiest way to summarize your articles quickly and succinctly.
Something people don’t often think about are their handles and social media display names. On the Explore page, Instagram favours handles and display names over personality-showing bios. This means that it’s useful to your brand to incorporate a relevant keyword into your handle or display name if you haven’t already. This will majorly improve your discoverability.
Check-in with a Web Crawler
In order to improve your site’s search engine rankings, it’s important to make sure your site has been indexed. For your site to even appear in a search, you have to crawl it at least once, but crawling often is a great way to make sure your content is being indexed across the board.
Web crawlers are imperative to running a website because they can give you valuable information about broken links, duplicate content, and page title optimization. If there’s a problem with your site, a crawler will find it for you with the correct permissions in place. For people who are new to website building, this can prevent awkward error codes or it can even let you know if people aren’t able to search out your content.
Create engaging content
This tactic can read as a no-brainer or straight-up cheesy, but it is actually one of the keys to good SEO. When you create content that resonates with your followers, it increases your chances of that content being shared with other audiences outside your initial bubble, widening your consumer funnel.
A rule of thumb is to make sure that your content is appealing and accurate. The more reputable your brand becomes in the arenas of thought leadership within your niche, the more likely that boost will affect your standing in the eyes of Google.
Cash in on backlinking
If you’ve been creating content long enough, you can utilize backlinks to strengthen your SEO. The more your content is backlinked by other sources, the more valuable it is to the Google algorithm. This signals to search engines that your content is engaging and useful to other audiences, thus making it attractive to them to push forward into relevant search results more often.
This comes back to our last point about creating engaging content: When you provide value, you get more value. So with that in mind, it’s essential to prioritize your best when sharing informative or entertaining content that other people will find interesting.
SEO is a brand tool that is necessary for online success from the holidays, to boxing day, and beyond to 2023. After all, if your website isn’t optimized for search engines, getting traffic and brand recognition is a bit of an uphill battle. Taking the time to work on your brand’s online presence is a great indicator of a serious small business owner, and the best part is that you don’t have to become an SEO expert on top of all the other tasks you have on the go. Teams like us at Super Duper can help handle those in-depth tech-heavy developments so you can focus on what matters most to you.
On the hunt for a social media partner? Super Duper Studios is a digital branding agency in Toronto. We specialize in game-changing visual identity, websites that make sense, and double-tap worthy social media content. Nice to meet ya! Email me at rebeca.mackinnon@itssuperduper.com and let’s chat.
Rebeca MacKinnon
Social Media Specialist at Super Duper Studios.