If you’re an SME business that’s keen on building a strong online presence, SEO needs to be an important aspect of your internet marketing strategy. In fact, companies that want to stay relevant and reachable in today’s digital economy cannot do without a sound internet marketing plan, whatever their line of business.

Whether you’re a local ecommerce store, service website or blog, investing in SEO and other key marketing tools is indispensable for the success of your enterprise. Here are some of the key factors you need to bear in mind when drawing up your SEO budget and strategy.

ROI on SEO

Any small time SEO company can get you likes and follows, but if you believe in organic growth that will result in real conversions and increased revenues, you must be open to investing in consistent and rigorous SEO promotion.

For small and medium businesses, a one- or two-member in-house SEO team can never achieve what a seasoned internet marketing agency can. It has the expertise to understand how google and other search engines work, what strategies must be employed to bring your business up to top, and what are the possible pitfalls of SEO manipulations google doesn’t approve.

So think hard before spending the dollars—what will give your greater ROI on your SEO spend: an experienced team of seasoned internet marketers or a one-person army with limited experience?

Content is King

Remember that when it comes to internet marketing and SEO promotion, high-quality content is still king. By generating content that’s worthy of being placed in the top search results, your Internet Marketing Team will not only ensure greater traffic to your website, but also reader/customer loyalty that’s hard to come by in these times.

With increasing automation and more and more people getting access to the internet, digital marketers globally are looking at some riveting changes in the search engine optimization has worked so far. But every seasoned marketer knows that great content will never lose its relevance in the world of digital marketing.

User Experience

While at one point in history user experience was the responsibility of website designers, today SEO teams are increasingly becoming aware of the impact UX has on visitor retention and return. Whether it’s the speed of your blog or website or the user-friendliness of its design or the ease of navigation, a website that appeals to a large spectrum of prospective customers is essential for any small business trying to scale.

Voice and Visual Search

Voice and photo-based search has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and more and more businesses are recognizing the value of using images to drive traffic to their websites and social media handles.

Running a successful and effective internet marketing campaign involves all of this and much more, and if your business needs the boost, don’t shy away from investing in the latest SEO strategies.

Lastly, if you’re looking for tangible results in a small span of time, avoid hiring a rookie for the job.

19

Building a responsive website can be an exciting project for many businesses. Whether it’s upgrading your existing site to be mobile friendly or creating a new website from scratch, there are a lot of unique designs and added value that you can bring to a mobile website as opposed to a desktop website.

However, It’s important to not rush into the design, content and structure without thinking about SEO services first. You might think that incorporating SEO activities should be an after thought. Many businesses and individuals think the visuals of a website should be the basis and then build on it from there.

When you leave the online search ranking ability of your website until last, this can lead to significant website headaches down the track. When you put your online visibility first, then everything else should incorporate into this leaving you with a optimised, user friendly and informative website.

Online ranking activities aren’t just about keywords. There are various other priorities that tie in with this. With mobile website conversion rates now being more important than ever, here are top ways SEO services for website can help improve your mobile website.

Faster page speed time

Every second more it takes to load a page can lead your user to closing down the page. It doesn’t matter how creatively designed and dynamic your website might be, if it takes forever to load, then no-one will be patient enough to even get to your site.

Online ranking activities take into account page loading speed due to its impact on your bounce rate. The higher your bounce rate the less search engines will see your website as an authority and therefore will be less likely to rank your website.

When you base your mobile website build around faster page speed time, you will increase user satisfaction and user experience. A way to ensure this SEO activity is a priority in the build of your website is making sure you don’t have any large images and video files. Having large, slow loading visuals and video are some of the main reasons a page can be slow to load.

Warn against the use of pop-ups

Many of us have come across a pop-up when going to different websites on a desktop. Think about how intrusive they are on a desktop. Now times this by 10 when the user is on a mobile device. Just like page load speed, this is another factor that encourages visitors to close down your web page. It’s a barrier between them and your actual website.

On mobile, it’s more difficult to click the little “exit” button. Sometimes due to the configuration of the pop-up the exit button can even be difficult to find, such as being cut off or hidden when the website is viewed in portrait mode.

When you put these types of data gathering practices ahead of SEO and user experience, it will impact the traffic you receive to your website. Data gathering is a great marketing tactic. However, an SEO expert will find a place for it that isn’t intrusive to the user and actually adds to the visitor experience.

Encourage a user-friendly design

Not all website designers build a website that puts user experience first. There are a lot of elements that go into building a mobile website that they may be preoccupied with. For example, colour scheme and device compatibility. Yes, these elements are important but they shouldn’t overshadow user experience.

When you build a mobile site that is designed for a positive user experience, it should encourage your visitor to view more pages on your website and delve deeper. This inturn decreases your bounce rate, making your site more attractive to search engines. For example, elements such as an easy scroll function and ensuring buttons are big enough for the average thumb and index finger are just some of the factors you should be thinking about for a mobile site.

Prioritise titles

Not only is there the keyword search ranking importance of titles and meta descriptions, but when it comes to mobile websites, you also need to take into account how your titles will look.

A visitor should be able to understand from the first 2 seconds what your web page is about and how it relates to their initial query or their navigation journey. On desktop, it’s easier to have a longer title that explains what a page is about, however, when viewed on mobile, longer titles can be difficult to read.

A person that may not be familiar with SEO could delete the H1 because it looks too text heavy in mobile. This will severely impact your online visibility. Instead, opt for a shorter H1 that will look good on both desktop and mobile.

Summary

With the trend of responsive websites not going anywhere, and more people using their smart phones and tablet devices to conduct online searches and view websites, it’s important you get your mobile website right from the start.

As time goes on, you will be consistently upgrading and tweaking your website. But some tweaks are easier to do in the future than others. Changing an image or adding content is much easier to do than having to change your entire website structure due to page load speed or a poor user experience.

Don’t forget that implementing mistakes such as mobile phone pop-ups and confusing titles can hurt your bounce rate, which may take you a long time to improve once it has been impacted.