Wow, only a week or so left of 2014. And what an incredible year it has been! We launched our free business dashboards company, Dasheroo, spent some quality time with friends, family and our pups, & did some fun travel to boot!
And right around the end of one thing and the beginning of the next, it’s a natural time to take stock of some things you may have put on cruise control for the past few months. Like? Search Engine Optimization of course! So we thought we’d spend a few minutes reminding everyone, including us here at Dasheroo, of some important things to keep in mind when thinking about driving high search results for your website. So here goes! (Plus, a bonus for us, we noticed a couple things we should improve as well.)
A quick note: this is meant to be a quick read. For a lengthier, very good, & recent article on SEO, check out ‘Learning SEO from the Experts’ from our buddies over at HubSpot.
First.
And this cannot be hammered home enough: make sure your site is focused toward it’s #1 purpose – to be a useful resource for your target market. Which, if so, should result in leads and sales. If you do that, good things will happen. If you do that and some of the tips below, very good things should happen!
Second.
Keep in mind it’s a marathon not a 50-yard dash. It takes awhile to creep (and it is a creep) up the search rankings. We feel that pain here at Dasheroo. Just starting our, with a new domain, zero authority and building content, we are now on page 4 for our #1 keyword, ‘business dashboards’. But we started out 8 months ago, not even existing. Progress!
Third.
Each page of your site has a purpose. So don’t optimize for the exact same keyword phrases on each page. Now, in this era of single scrolling sites (yes, we are guilty) this can cause a challenge. So, pick 2-3 keyword phrases and target each one for the content on the appropriate area on that looong page.
‘Business Dashboards’ is our primary keyword, but ‘free business dashboard’ is important too. So we include both in our meta tags.
Fourth.
Do some keyword research! Use Google Adwords Keyword Planner, start with a small list first and expand as you learn. It’s all about focus! Plus, look at your goals and see which keywords actually drive your conversions, and then use the Keyword Planner to find more words similar to those!
Lastly.
Think social! How does that impact SEO? Lots. The Googles of the world value the ‘social signals’ you throw off. So think about a) having a great company blog that also includes your main keyword phrases b) have FB, Twitter and other social sharing buttons on your posts! c) use your main keywords within your social media updates.
Oh yeah, and measure. We love Moz, they do a great job of recommendations to improve your on-page SEO. And keep learning! In addition to the Hubspot post mentioned above there’s a wealth of great resources to help you improve. We just picked up a great book, ‘Search Engine Marketing, Inc.’ by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt. A great resource!
OK, even if you just pick a couple things to do to improve, we hope this helps you create a great SEO plan for 2015!