A Beginner’s Guide to SEO

How to Set Your Business Up for Future Growth

As busy entrepreneurs, we constantly seek ways to maximize our business’s growth potential. One effective strategy is to focus on SEO or search engine optimization. You’ve heard about it. You feel like you need it. But no matter what you do, you still have no f’n idea what it is or how to do it. But don’t worry; you’ve landed in the right place. In this post, I’ll break down the basics of SEO and give you some practical tips on how to get started.

What is SEO, and Why Do You Need It?

To start, let’s define SEO. Search Engine Optimization is the practice of enhancing your content to improve your search engine ranking and attract more organic traffic to your online spaces. In simpler terms, it’s the process of making your content more visible to people searching for the products or services you offer.

It’s important because it helps you reach your target audience more effectively. Optimizing your website for search engines makes it easier for people to find you when searching for something related to your business. This leads to more traffic, more leads, and more sales. But know this: SEO is a long-term strategy and investment. It will not pay off overnight, but it can continue to pay off for years to come.

Now, when most people talk about SEO and search engine result pages (SERPs), they’re mainly talking about Google finding and ranking your website, and for the sake of this post, that is what I’m referring to as well. But I challenge you to consider the future. Think about it, when did you last search Google for a nail tech or barber? Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest have quickly become where younger generations search for topics and ideas. So keep that in mind and know that although the same principles can apply to all content, how you optimize that content to make it more searchable will vary by platform.

How to Get Started with SEO for Your Website

Before getting into the details of SEO, the pre-step is having a solid understanding of your ideal client persona. You must be clear about the motivations and pain points of those looking for your products or services. If you are unsure about what they struggle with or what will motivate them to buy, then please stop and check out my blog on defining your ideal client persona for some resources on how to do so. Trust me, having this clarity will make implementing SEO so much easier, but off of my soapbox and on to the steps:

Step 1: Research Keywords

You need to know what keywords they use to find businesses like yours. Another way to think about it is once you know your ideal client’s pain points or the problems they are trying to solve, you need to research what keywords they are looking for to solve those problems. That way, you can position your business as their solution and target your content to meet their search behavior. A few tools I’ve used in the past to do Keyword research include Google Keyword Planner and MOZ Keyword Explorer,

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find relevant keywords and phrases you can target in your content.

Step 2: Create Quality, Evergreen Content

Search engines love high-quality, informative content that provides value to the reader. The most common ways to produce search engine ranking content for your website are through blogs and podcasts (specifically, podcast show notes written as a blog post). Ensure your content is consistently published, well-written, informative, and engaging. It should be influenced by your ideal clients’ search behavior and answer common questions or solve common problems related to your business. It should also be written in a way that will still be helpful years later, even if that means making minor updates over time.

Step 3: Optimize your Content

Structure your to include relevant keywords in the body of your post, page titles, and meta descriptions. Use header tags (H1, H2, H3) to structure your content and make it easier for search engines to understand. I find it easy to check all these boxes by using Yoast SEO Premium on my WordPress blog to hold me accountable to readability and SEO standards.

Step 4: Build Internal Links and Backlinks

Think of the internet as a spider web. The more connections coming to and from your website, the stronger and more reliable it is. These connections (or links) help to establish your authority and improve your search engine ranking. Internal links are hyperlinks to other pages on your website, like one blog post linking to your contact page or another. Backlinks are links from other websites to your site. Consider reaching out to other websites in your industry and ask if they’d be willing to link to your content (thus driving traffic to your site from somewhere else and creating a backlink).

Summary

I hope you feel more confident and empowered to start implementing SEO strategies for your business. The topic of SEO can be overwhelming, but with a framework and some practice, you can set your business up for future growth and success. Remember, SEO is not a one-time task but a continuous process of optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search results. If you need further assistance, we’re always here to help. Don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a Balanced CEO Strategy Power Hour with me. Let’s work together to take your business to the next level!