Have you ever heard the quote from Peter Lynch: “A good idea is usually 10% of the solution. The other 90%, in most cases, is a lot of hard work”? The same can be said for improving your website’s search engine results. A good idea is great — but it won’t amount to anything if you don’t put in the time and work.
There are many pieces to the puzzle, so it’s not something that you can solve with just one trick. There are many variables that we experience as SEOs on a day-to-day basis. We never have the same daily tasks day after day and neither do our competitors. It’s up to us to make sure we’re ahead of the game.
To maintain a competitive advantage in SEO, here’s a strategy an SEO Expert in Phoenix has shared with us.
1. Make sure that your website is designed for the user
It’s how they’ll learn about your services and products, and whether they like those things enough to want to buy them. If the website isn’t optimized for the user, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.
The best way to make sure that your website is designed for the user is to make sure it works well on mobile devices. People tend to use their phones more than their desktops these days, so if your site isn’t mobile-optimized, you’re losing out on customers who may not have a lot of time to spend trying to navigate an unresponsive site.
You might also consider creating a blog or newsletter that keeps customers informed about new products or services in the pipeline. This will help keep them engaged with your brand even when they aren’t ready to buy anything right away—and it can also be used as an opportunity for remarketing later on down the line if someone does decide they want something from you after all!
2. Optimize your content for search engines
SEO is the practice of optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which means more people will see it when they search for things related to your business. Here are some ideas:
Optimize title tags: Title tags should be short and descriptive of what’s being shown on the page. For example, if your page is about “How to Do a Pushup,” the title tag should read something like “How to Do a Pushup.” It should not read “Pushups for Beginners.”
Optimize meta descriptions: Meta descriptions are short summaries of what each web page is about that show up below the title in SERPs. They should be unique from other pages on your site and descriptive of what’s on the page without being overly promotional or keyword-heavy.
Optimize URLs: The URL structure needs to be logical, easy to understand by humans and search engines, and descriptive of the content on the page. If you have a long URL that doesn’t reveal what’s on the page, consider breaking it up into several shorter URLs or using 301 redirects to direct people to the correct page.
3. Invest In Your Social Media Content & Management
Social media is what people turn to when they want information. It’s not just about how many followers you have—it’s also about how many people are positivtely influenced by your content, and how that content affects your overall brand story and messaging..
How to create a strong social media platform:
- Have a strong presence on all the major platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
- Be consistent—post at least once per day, even if it’s just an update or link to an article relevant to your industry.
- Use hashtags in your posts and make sure they’re relevant.
- Interact with other users and businesses; reply to comments and messages on your page; or engage with other accounts that are in your industry to show support and build community.
- Create valuable content: share tips, strategies, resources—anything that will help your followers.
The good news is that this really isn’t as difficult as it may seem. Sure, you will have to put forth a bit of effort to get started, and you’ll likely also need to make some adjustments over time to make sure everything is functioning properly. However, with proper planning and execution, you can easily keep your site at pace with the ever-changing world of SEO. Soon enough, those bragging rights become something you take for granted—and that’s the best kind of competitive advantage there is.