5 Fundamental SEO Strategies That Can Double Your Business

Recently, I was asked to make a TV appearance and share 5 SEO strategies that entrepreneurs can use to double the amount of traffic coming into their website. It seems that more and more business owners are realizing that just having a website is not enough. A good SEO strategy is essential for driving people to a website. Let’s take a look at 5 different SEO strategies that literally have the power to double the amount of people coming into your website.

SEO

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. This is the art of optimizing a website to rank highly in the search results when people are searching for the goods or services that you provide. You can think of SEO as something that allows Google and the other search engines to know what your website is about and which keywords and keyword phrases it should rank highly for. A keyword phrase is simply the words that people type into Google when they are looking for what you provide.

Primary Keyword Phrases

The two primary mistakes that entrepreneurs make when it comes to keyword selection is the selection of too many keywords, and also putting a primary focus on ultra-competitive keywords. The first is a big mistake, because in order to accomplish anything of significance, a big task must be broken up into smaller steps. Creating a massive keyword list can seem overwhelming and stand in the way of progress.

It is a good idea to begin by brainstorming a big list, but the key is to winnow that big list of keywords into a manageable size. Prioritize your keywords. Software tools or an SEO expert can help you determine which words will be the most profitable or productive.

Initially, you want to begin targeting keyword phrases that are highly relevant to your business and are not ultra-competitive. For example, a business consultant would not want to begin by targeting the keyword “consulting” because it is too competitive to be profitable and won’t provide traffic that is highly relevant. Think about searcher intent. If a person is looking for a consultant in their area, they will likely using a different keyword phrase like “restaurant consultant Dallas”. Notice that the intent behind a search for the word “consulting” isn’t clear but you can easily discern the intent behind the second search.

Once you have a targeted list of the 5 or 10 keyword phrases that you want to initially focus on, you’re ready for the next step.

Keyword Focused Webpages

After you have your list of keyword phrases, the next step is to identify specific pages on your website that will focus on those keywords. A common mistake that I see all the time is that a website won’t have any of the keywords on it. The search engines need you to tell them what your website is about using keywords. You do this by focusing a single page on your website around a keyword phrase. Don’t try to put all your keywords into a single page – it will dilute the focus of the page and may actually harm your website with Google.

You create focus by emphasizing that keyword on the page. Google looks in certain places on a webpage to see if something is being emphasized or focused on. You need to make sure that your keyword phrase is used in the HTML title, page title (using the H1 tag), and text on the page. It is helpful if this page has a picture or video embedded in the page and the keyword phrase can be used in the caption or title for the image or video.