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The beauty of inbound marketing is the fact that it’s an incredibly subtle form of business promotion. Think of it as a sales method disguised as a problem-solving technique. It identifies people who are in need of your services and products and then convinces them that buying from you was their idea all along. The way it works is through avoiding marketing speak and applying all sorts of soft-sell methods to your audience.
However, it does have a shortcoming. How can you persuade a person that you sent a targeted ad to, that it was their idea to contact you all along? After all, you did make the first move, right? Well, if you improve your reach and your visibility, you can still capitalize on this idea. Sure, your audience will feel like it was their research that brought the two of you together, without seeing hours and hours that you’ve invested in improving your exposure. Here are several good SEO tricks to help you exploit the full potential of this idea.
Voice search SEO
Most of your competitors are already investing quite a bit of time and resources into SEO, however, they probably aren’t that keen on voice search SEO, which can become your way in. Think about it, just a couple of years ago, voice search was just another one of those features that never get used and now, they’re utilized by 41 percent of adults and 55 percent of teens on a daily level. Voice search SEO is definitely something you need to take into consideration.
The downside of voice search SEO lies in the fact that not a lot of people know how to do it. For instance, with voice search, you’re primarily targeting local mobile users, since this is the most commonly used way of this feature. In fact, as much as 78 percent of local mobile searches are made just prior to an offline purchase. This also means that you have to adjust your keywords a bit. For instance, when typed into the search box, most keywords don’t use words in their proper form, articles or even prepositions. With voice search keywords, they’re used in their conversational form, which usually tends to be a more grammatical one.
Content that generates backlinks
The way in which the blogosphere works is quite simple, if people like your content, you have a chance at getting a backlink once they start working on a similar topic. However, having a quality piece of content doesn’t automatically guarantee that you’ll get a backlink. In order to get it, you need to share a piece of information or at least a reliable statistic that people will want to use in their own post. This isn’t nearly as hard as you might have assumed. Just take the above-linked two phrases. Both the number of people using voice search and the number of offline sales that local mobile searches drive is fascinating, not to mention that they are closely related to one of the most talked about topics online.
Outsource your SEO
Another thing you can do, at a relatively low-cost, is outsourcing your SEO. Think about it, sure, you can try to learn all about on-site optimization, backlinks, link building, social media marketing and ways to make your content viral but how many of these methods can you successfully execute. Outreach, metadata descriptions and keyword research may seem simple but they are just the tip of the iceberg of all that’s involved in this game. This, however, something you will discover for yourself only after several unsuccessful attempts at making them into DIY projects. For this reason alone, search engine optimization is something that’s probably best left for professionals.
Social media monitoring
Sometimes, you might feel like your own social media presence isn’t satisfactory when, in fact, it’s doing just fine. In this particular situation, you stand to try and fix a situation that isn’t broken, which is a waste of both effort and resources. In a different scenario, you might misdiagnose your problem, which can cause you to waste resources that could be better used elsewhere. Keep in mind that the audience you’re trying to reach might not be present on the social network you’re using in the first place. Each demographic has its own preferred channel and failing to realize this in time can be devastating for your brand. With the upcoming changes in 2018, this segmentation might become even greater.
Patience is the key
Finally, perhaps the greatest problem with the SEO of small companies lies in the fact that their owners don’t actually realize how much effort and time it takes to set up a decent online exposure. Sometimes, your gut feeling may be misleading you, even though it can be quite useful at times. For instance, a blog that has two posts in total shouldn’t worry about not generating enough backlinks or not having a rank they deserve. SEO rank is nothing else but one’s reputation in the digital world. Building reputation takes time. Sure, shortcuts (black-hat SEO) exist but they are better left unused, seeing as how they cause more trouble than they’re worth it in the long-run.
The last thing you need to realize is that, in order to succeed, you need to start thinking outside-of-the-box. Think about it, most of the business world has more resources, contacts, and customers than your small business, which means that, if you’re to triumph, you need to battle them under your own terms. This means saving your strength and resources for battles you know you can win. For this reason alone, SMBs need to adopt a different approach to SEO (and digital marketing in general) than their larger competitors.
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