Starting a whole new business can feel very exciting. After all, for all you know, you could be embarking on what turns out to be quite a lengthy adventure rich in triumphs. Conversely, though, your new business in the UK could instead be among the 60% that collapse within three years.
This sobering statistic highlights the importance of guarding against complacency. SEO (search engine optimisation) can help, but where do you start with it? Here are the elements you need…
A Google My Business listing
“If a business isn’t on Google, does it exist at all?” Okay, so you’ve probably been posed philosophical questions more thought-provoking than this – but the case stands that, when someone is looking for a business, they will naturally utilise Google.
For this reason, you should prioritise setting up your company’s Google My Business page. If you already see a listing, Google lets you “claim” it; here’s how you do it. Verifying your ownership of this listing will allow you to tailor it to better meet your SEO ends.
A well-designed website
While it’s not entirely unheard-of for a business to do without a website, instead relying on listings across sites like Yell.com, Facebook and Twitter, you don’t want to punch below your weight.
However, as getting the fundamentals in place for an intuitively-designed website could be a struggle if you lack the relevant technical knowhow, you could opt for one of our web design packages. Our entry-level, 4-page Bronze web design package is especially suitable for beginners.
Keywords
Once you’ve got a website, how can you help to ensure that the right people find it? The answer lies in “keywords”; these are words especially likely to feature in your target audience’s search queries and, therefore, to warrant inclusion in your site’s textual copy, too.
Each of your site’s pages should be optimised for a particular keyword or keyword phrase that you choose on account of the products or services offered through this page.
Backlinks
On your website, you might claim that your business is reliable, trustworthy and informative – but Google could just see this as marketing hyperbole. How are you supposed to back up your bold words? The answer is by getting already trusted sites to link back to your company’s site.
Google perceives each of these backlinks as a “vote” vindicating your site’s quality, but be warned that backlinks from dodgy, untrustworthy sites can have the opposite effect!
A way to track your progress
Even if you’ve got your company a well-designed website and Google My Business listing, scattered relevant keywords across the website’s text and collected a fair few backlinks, how can you be certain that your efforts are bearing fruit?
Impressions and clicks are obvious metrics to monitor, but you still need some kind of benchmark – at least after your SEO campaign has been running for about three months. If you call our team on 01325 582112, we can enlighten you about promising indicators, warning signs and how to react to them.
