You can have the most aesthetically pleasing site for your small business but if no one sees it then what value is the website actually providing?
You can have the most aesthetically pleasing site for your small business but if no one sees it then what value is the website actually providing? A local business’s website serves the purpose of delivering authentic information to potential customers.
Today I am going to discuss a few basic tips and tricks for productive SEO that will help get people to your website.
When you’re designing a website it’s important to build it with the end consumer in mind. I always begin by asking myself who is the business's target market? How do I connect with that individual?
When I am building a website for a client it’s very important to me to keep the project organized, clean, and productive. This makes for a solid foundation that will allow the website to grow. By being organized and methodical in the beginning, it makes for a streamlined workflow down the road.
When I’m designing a website for a local business most of the time they have little to no online presence. I like to start with simple tactics that allow me to create a well-built foundation. Later down the road, I’ll begin implementing advanced tactics but I like to start with the basics.
A website should never be seen as a one and done thing, it should be seen as an active element of your business that grows alongside your business.
I host all my client’s sites using Webflow so that’s what I’ll be showing you today. I like to design using Webflow because it allows me to fully customize each page so that I can create a site that is unique for each specific client.
So the first tip is to clearly explain your business. Yes it’s as simple as that. Oftentimes business owners forget to slow down and make it very clear what it is they provide. We understand our own businesses so well that we forget to begin with a 1000 foot overview and then dive right into the details.
We need to start from the beginning because it is likely the potential customer knows nothing about our business.
It’s important to clearly spell out what it is that your business does, where it’s located, and who its target market is.
Tip number 2 is to properly use heading and paragraph tags.
So what are heading tags?
Heading tags are a way of classifying text by importance. Text with an H1 tag or Heading 1 lets the search engine know that this is the most important text.
No, you can’t just give everything an H1 tag. Everything is only good in moderation. Broccoli is healthy but if you were only to eat broccoli, you wouldn’t have a well-rounded diet.
So when you’re building out your page, make sure to take a moment to classify your headings with “Heading” tags in the order of importance.
I like to do this after I have all the content written for the page. At that point I’ll have a good understanding of the order of importance.
Okay, at this point we’ve clearly spelled out what it is the business provides and we’ve then gone through and appropriately tagged all the text. We’re off to an organized and productive state.
My third tip is to make the most of well organized meta titles and meta descriptions.
Each page on your website has what's called a meta title and meta description. This is a string of text that tells search engines what the purpose of that specific page is.
The description is where you can briefly sum up everything that is discussed on this page. 155 to 300 characters is usually the sweet spot.
When writing these page titles, it's important to keep keywords in mind. What words or phrases are a customer likely to use when they enter the market for your product or service.
There’s a lot more complex information that goes into this but again the purpose of this video is to talk about the fundamentals of productive well-organized search engine optimization.
So now we have clearly spelled out content, organized our heading tags, and appropriately labeled each page's meta title and meta description.
This one has to do with being productive and organized. The footer of each page is a great place to include the 1000 foot overview of the business, contact information and links.
When you’re a local company it's very important for the search engine to understand where you are located. This allows the search engine to show customers results based on their location.
So throughout the site, it’s important to make it clear what areas you service and where you are located. One of the best places to include this information is in the footer. Why? Because the footer is present on every page. Therefore by putting critical information here, you are presenting that information on every single page. Do it right one time, copy, paste, work smarter not harder. Being productive is my absolute favorite.
By inputting an address, Google is able to see exactly where you are located. The same goes with the phone number, Google is able to read your area code and associate you with that area.
By presenting this information it helps with local discovery searches. This leads me into my final tip which is Google My Business.
Google My Business is kind of like having a social media profile on Google. We upload your contact information, products, services, photos, logo, and link it all to your website as well as other social media profiles.
Having a fully built Google My Business profile is game changer for search engine results. Google loves it when you use and embrace their platform so they reward you for building out your profile.
I do this after the website has been built and published because one of the most important things about your Google My Business listing is being able to link your website to the listing. Therefore you need your website to be live in order to do it. Website first, Google My Business second.
When users perform a search on Google Maps, the information that comes up is from Google My Business. This is a game changer for local businesses. I make sure to include a fully built profile with every web design project.
There we go, that is 5 beginner tips and tricks for good clean website design.
Like I said before, you can easily take shortcuts and accidentally skip these steps but if you take the time to do right, you will be rewarded down the road. I’ve found that by building a solid foundation, It’s easier to add onto your website over time and allow it to grow alongside your business.
I hope you found value in this post. If you’re a small business owner and you're interested in having a website built, send me an email, I would love to have a cup of coffee and discuss the project. The first step is discussing how a website can serve your business.
Each year, we take a fresh look at the various marketing efforts a small business can make. We've built this framework to get started optimizing your business's online presence.
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