We plan New Year’s resolutions for our health, fitness, hobbies, vacations and business goals each year. Some of us are more successful than others in keeping on track, but the intent is always good. When planning your resolutions for 2012, don’t overlook your website.
It is true that the algorithms change enough to make even an SEO pro’s head spin, but there are some best practices that you can put in place that will have nothing but positive results, no matter how many changes the search engines make.
Blogging
Blogs serve two purposes. First, they keep your audience engaged and keeps your readers coming back to your website daily or weekly. Making informative, controversial, or interesting posts regularly gives your customers a reason to keep up with changes to your site. RSS feeds allow your new content to be delivered right to your reader’s computer every time you post. Second, search engines like websites with fresh content. Your blog provides an easy way to continually have fresh content focused around the keywords your future clients are using to find the information they need.
Website Design
Is your website user friendly? Does it look outdated? Your customers want a site that is clean looking and easy to navigate. Broken links, text that is hard to read, or confusing layouts will cause visitors to your site to bounce right back to the search engine. That bounce back time can actually hurt your rankings. In addition, search engine spiders will reject your site if they get caught in loops or can’t navigate to index your information.
Social Media
Do you have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ page for your website? If not, you could be missing a great opportunity to spread the word about your business, offer discounts and deals to drive customers to your site or physical location, and you are missing out on valuable back links that increase search rankings. Social media can be a time drain, and requires frequent updates to be effective. If you don’t have the time to manage your business social media, let an expert do the work for you.
Location Based Marketing
Do you have a physical location that customers can visit you at? If so, are you listed on all of the local search directories? Do you use mobile marketing applications such as foursquare? Setting up this aspect of marketing takes time, and your competition is already on board. Make 2012 a year for taking advantage of mobile, location based marketing options.
If your website or internet marketing strategies are lacking in any of the above areas, or the tasks seem to daunting to keep up with, don’t fret. Epic Web Results provides comprehensive packages to keep your website at the top of the search results, regardless of your business niche.
