Today I'm sharing my 3 SEO Secrets with you, and I think you are really going to find these to be very helpful! Recently I've been getting asked a lot about SEO and if I suggest hiring a SEO company. What I can tell you is that I have never hired out for SEO before- and I have gotten great results doing it on my own over the years.
A few years ago a friend of mine attended WordCamp (a WordPress conference), and sent me a photo from one of the sessions she was attending. There it was on the big screen- my website at the #1 spot on google for my top keyword (at that time). I was confused and shocked- how could my small business website possibly be used as an example in a panel about SEO? I wasn't an SEO expert by any means, and I didn't pay any SEO company thousands of dollars to get me to that position. At that moment, I felt really proud and realized that this whole SEO thing wasn't so bad after all!
I am going to tell you the top 3 things I have done for SEO which has landed this website on the front page of google for my keywords. I'm not saying this to brag- I'm simply saying that being consistent with these 3 SEO tips will get you where you need to be!
1- Use SEO Tools
I know that you are doing so many things for your business already, but there is no reason to try to do everything on your own, goodness! ;) The tool that has helped me the most over the years is the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. I always get my client websites set up with it (for both Showit & WordPress) , and it has helped me understand what the heck SEO really is and how it works.
Yoast SEO is a tool that simply helps you create optimized content. It gives you tips and suggestions to revise your content until the red light turns to green (no, really- there is a cute little stoplight alerting if your content is SEO friendly or not!) and you are ready to publish. Once this plugin is installed, you will see a new area at the bottom of your pages and blog posts in the WordPress editor.
If you have a Showit/WordPress website, you will mostly use this tool for your blog posts since Showit has it's own SEO settings. If your website is WordPress only- you will use this to optimize all of your pages, blog posts and general website settings. It's a must-have!
If you are not already using this tool- get it installed and setup asap. You can thank me later! 😉
2- Optimize Images
It's easy to be so focused on the text on your website that you forget about your images. Get into the habit immediately of giving each image an image title and alt text. Your image title needs to be a descriptive name (vs ‘04826452.jpg'). I have always used the alt text area to insert my keywords, business name and a description of the image. For me, using alt text on images consistently has probably been my most effective SEO tactic. This is great news for those of you who have image-heavy websites!
You will also need to make sure the file type and size of your images are optimized. The most commonly used file types for web are .jpg and .png files, and there are many tools you can use to compress your images to make them the correct size. My favorite way to do this is with Photoshop's ‘Save for Web' option.
If you are reading this and you want to push the panic button- don't. If you have a gazillion images on your website or blog that are not optimized, it's ok. You can do them a little at a time until they are all up to par, but the most important thing is to start optimizing them from here on out. You can do it!
3- Content
I'm going to be honest here and tell you that I am not the most consistent person at all when it comes to blogging and social media. I'm working on it, I swear! 😊So if you're thinking that ‘adding content consistently' means blogging everyday or having to dedicate 10 hours a week to it, think again.
As long as you are adding new content to your website consistently- google will love you. I do this typically by adding to my portfolio, featuring new projects, adding downloads to the VLV Library, and by blogging. I don't add new content to my website every day, and I don't even do it every week (which I'm kind of ashamed to admit). But the more optimized content that you can publish, the better. And since you're going to be optimizing all of your images and using your Yoast SEO Tool, your content is going to be amazing!
Conclusion
I hope that my 3 SEO Secrets help you feel more confident in your ability to start working on your SEO and understanding how it can truly benefit your small business. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to get great results- you just have to be consistent! I promise- if I can do this, you can too!
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