SEO optimization is NOT just about keywords.  Or keyword placement.  Or where you place your longtail keyword in your copy.  We cannot stress this enough: SEO optimization is about more than keyword phrases.  Here are 10 Tips to help you boost your SEO and increase traffic to your website.

(Please, dear reader, laugh.  Yes. This paragraph is one long SEO optimization pun.  And it is only moderately funny. But we are attempting to help you with your small business marketing, so please be kind and laugh.)

1. Remove anything that slows down your site.

Sometimes, when I go to Target, if the line is too long, I abandon my cart.  My cart full of things I just HAD TO HAVE. I don’t want to wait.  The wait makes me question if I really need that hand towel that says “Everyday I’m Brusseling”.  That wait gives me time to see if I can find the hand towel online.  Similarly, a slow page can frustrate the user experience and ultimately discourage people from buying your product.  Why?  Because everyday we’re husseling, brussels sprout pun hand towel or no.

Data from Strange Loop shows that a mere 1-second delay in page load time can yield a whopping 7% loss in conversions. Not only that, google uses site speed in its rankings.  80% of visitors will abandon any site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. So make sure to not make your readers wait!

2. Link to other websites with relevant content.

You may think that having outbound links that direct people away from your site is a bad idea.  You would be wrong.  It is helpful to your reader and that is entirely what good inbound marketing is all about—informing your target audience.  By linking to other good resources of information, you show your market that you know things. And the things you don’t know? Well, you know the people who know those things.  Which is called wisdom and experts share it.

3. Write for humans.

Your target market is human. So, your content should be directed at humans. We like to think of this as the Field of Dreams approach to content marketing: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME.

If you create relatable, educational, valuable, human content, THEY WILL READ IT AND BE ENGAGED AND GIVE YOU ALL THEIR MONEY. (Okay, okay.  Maybe not ALL of their money.) Your focus as you create content should be on return on investment, not on rankings.  Will rankings help you? Sure. But it doesn’t matter how many people show up to your site if they are a) not the right people, or b) the content on your site’s only value is it ranking. You want your site visitors to become customers, and that lead conversion only happens if you are providing them with actual value and not just a mumble of keywords strung together to appease an algorithm.

4. Have web analytics in place.

This seems like a no brainer.  You can’t track how people are finding you if you don’t have the means to track the data. Google analytics or tools like HubSpot are things you should put into place before you even have your first website visitor.

5. Don’t ignore your META Descriptions

Neglecting to craft a thoughtful meta description is common. But the meta description is the very first thing people see when Google serves up your page to search users. So make that first impression count.  Shoot for  around 150 characters that can succinctly describe what your article is about for your best SEO optimization.

Search engines don’t like duplicate content. So be original. Depending upon what platform you are using, there are different plug-ins you can use.  WordPress’s Yoast plugin is a helpful tool. We are particularly fond of HubSpot's SEO tools.

6. Have meaningful content slugs

A content slug is part of your URL that directs people to your particular page. If users cannot understand your URL, chances are search engines cannot either. We always choose the title of a post as its content slug.  Not only does this help readers and search engines determine what the subject matter of a page is about, but it also helps us organize our content. Avoid content slugs that use numbers or characters unless it is relevant.  No one knows what the subject of this URL is “www.yourwebsite.com/article/123456”.  But were you to see this   “www.yourwebsite.com/this-writer-at-mpwrsource-is-amazing”? Well, then you can clearly see it is an article written about me.

(Stop laughing.  We will let you know when we are joking.  See first paragraph and keyword puns.)

7. Use social media.

Make sure that your posts are easy to share by embedding links to social media.  And make sure that sharing your posts are part of your organization’s social media strategy. Creating useful content is a surefire way to make people share your content.  We share things we like.  And encourage people to share, especially your employees.  Consider having an in-house contest to encourage your team members to share.  The person who shares the most or drives the most traffic to your website gets a $5 gift card to that place you all love.  You can also host a giveaway on your own social media platform that includes entries for liking your page, commenting, or sharing.  Do not doubt what people will do for free stuff.  Even small free stuff.

8. Image keywords

Images are important in search engine optimization. In fact, google has given image search its own dedicated search result. And when users look for a particular image…as luck would have it…they use keywords to do so. So when you select your captions, make sure they indicate what is in the photograph. Just be careful as you use your keywords, you avoid keyword stuffing as this will actually negatively impact your rankings.

9. Long-Tail Keywords Do Help

We know.  We’ve said to not hang your hat solely on keywords.  But we do love long-tail keywords.  What we mean by that is to consider the phrases people type out to search for things rather than just the subjects.  For example, for this page—the keyword might be “SEO optimization” whereas the long-tail keywords would be “tips on how to increase my SEO”.  Do you see the difference?  They often are easier to work with and can help boost your organic traffic.

Additionally, thinking of question keywords also helps as more and more people are using digital assistants to help them with their internet searches.  When thinking of how to phrase these long-tail keyword queries, simply ask what Alexa or Siri would use to figure this out for you.

You may research and find that your long-tail keywords have fewer monthly searches.  But here is the thing—these long-tail keyword searches have higher conversion rates.  And that is the end goal.  Converting the searcher to a customer.  And serious buyers use a long-tail search because they have a specific question or pain point they want addressed.

10. BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR CONTENT CREATION

We get it.  Creating original, informative, engaging content on a regular and consistent basis is challenging.  Especially if what you are trying to do is actually do your job vs write about doing your job. But whether you are a B2B or B2C business, when it comes to content marketing, consistency is key.  If you struggle to create content for your website consistently, consider using a marketing company that can help.  We hear the squad at MPWRSource has a great Creative Team with a crackerjack Content Leader.  Allegedly, there was once a fictitious article mentioned about her titled “this-writer-at-mpwrsource-is-amazing”.