As a business owner, you’re busy. You have to switch hats from being the cashier, the marketing genius, the HR manager, and the IT expert. It isn’t surprising that your SEO concentration is, well, scattered. It’s easy to see how SEO takes a back seat, but does it have to? Quantus Creative offers a free SEO strategy plan that will help your business grow.
If anyone has told you that once your SEO is in place, it is on autopilot has misguided you. SEO is constantly changing, but these 5 things are common mistakes and can be fixed easily:
#1: Not Optimizing
Google owns your GMB page, and with them as the owner, you got to follow their rules! Many business owners set up a Google Business Page and then let it run. You have to take the following steps, or your “Google My Business” page is just sitting there doing nothing:
- Click here and claim your GMB page
- Complete all the required information, including the business address, phone number, URL, business hours, menu, price lists, social links, and other pertinent information.
- Use the important local keywords in the descriptions.
- Add pictures and relevant images.
- Regularly check your listing since customers can make changes.
#2: Not Optimizing
Your website for mobile users is all about local SEO today! Almost 100% of mobile searches are done on Google! If your mobile website isn’t ranking, you’re losing business. Optimize your mobile site with these key things all geared toward being USER FRIENDLY:
- Improve the loading time of your mobile site. Anything slower than 2.5 seconds is too slow by consumers today.
- Survey your mobile using customers to see if your buttons and menus are user friendly.
- Make sure the mobile content is easy to read. Avoid needing horizontal scrolling or squinting to read your website on a mobile device.
- Set common actions and requests so they are easy for mobile users, like getting directions to your location, social media following, price lists, and more. Nixed a prices there, felt repetitive with price lists in there
#3: Not Optimizing
Voice search has become a huge trend in SEO with Alexa. Cortona, Siri, and even Google. Voice commands do over 20% of online searches today. Fortunately, it is easy to optimize for voice search because we ask questions in specific ways as humans. Here are a few tips:
- Answer common questions formed as long-tail keywords.
- Focus on long-tail keywords that include words like:
- How to
- New
- Best
- Top-rated
- Since most voice searches for something local, incorporate local keywords.
- Have a quick loading mobile website.
#4: Broken Links aka ERROR 404
Link-building is important for SEO, internal and external. If the links are broken, your SEO suffers.
#5: Reviews
Customer reviews are important! Almost 90% of consumers base their decision on the information they read in online reviews. If you’ve had the opinion that reviews don’t matter, think again. Here are a few pointers for taking care of your online reviews:
- Claim your GMB, Yelp, and other sites where customers leave reviews.
- Make sure your business information is accurate.
- Ask your Facebook followers to leave a review.
- Assign the task of handling those reviews, good or bad.
As we said earlier, SEO is constantly changing. Address these 5 SEO mistakes now and see how much business you gain!
