Drive Traffic To Your Website With These 3 SEO Tips - Your web presence can have an impact on your small business but it’s up to you whether that impact is positive or negative.

I’m going to tell you something you probably already know: Having a website is crucial to your business. You hear it everywhere, and, at this point, it’s almost common knowledge. I visited a panel a few years back in Washington DC where a representative from Google said that almost 50 percent of all independently owned businesses don’t have a website. It’s almost unheard of with how easy it is to start a site with services like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, and Shopify at everyone’s disposal.
Drive Traffic To Your Website With These 3 SEO Tips
Drive Traffic To Your Website With These 3 SEO Tips
Owning a website isn’t enough either. You need to maintain and update your site as often as you can just like you need to do with everything else in your business. It sounds like a lot of work but think of it like getting into the batter’s box without a bat… and Tom Seaver is lobbing fastballs at you.

For those who have a site and let it fall to the wayside, well, now you’re facing Seaver with a wiffle bat. Sure, you have a bat but you’re ill-equipped. Here are a few SEO tips to improve the likelihood your website is recognized by the Google Monster.

The technical purpose of regular blog postings, or online publications, is to tell search engines that your website is constantly being updated, and each new page should be indexed. This makes your site much more visible in search results for industry-specific keywords.

But the intent of the blog is threefold; both your current and future customers and clients will use your blog as a resource to sort through useful information that pertains to their needs and solves their problems. Blogging can’t guarantee you a customer, but repeat visitors mean they’re interested in what you offer, which can potentially lead to a sale.

You’re also building a relationship with your readers, meaning they’re smack dab in the middle of the buyer’s cycle. If you haven’t started already, get to writing a blog; just don’t skimp out on delivering relevant and useful information. Blogging just for the sake of blogging can be seen as cheap and your audience can see right through the charade.

Blogging is great but having your audience read a wall of text can grow tiresome. Adding a little variety to your content freshens up how your message is delivered and helps with getting your site recognized by search engines.

In addition to written blog posts, I record Straight Talk videos that are much more accessible to my audience. Businesses and entrepreneurs like Synchrony Bank, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Dave Ramsay, record podcasts in addition to their blogs and videos.

If you don’t have the time for blogging or video, consider working with images. Throw in an infographic where it makes sense to enhance your blogs. Remember, don’t neglect the ‘alt text’ of your image. Use relevant keywords as they help make search engines understand the images you placed, as well as making it accessible for those who are visually impaired.

This is one of the most important parts of building out a website that I see many people fail time and time again. I deal with clients who do the bare minimum, making their site look completely outdated. Having an ugly looking site isn’t a crime but making it difficult to navigate should very well be.

Is your site navigable to those technologically illiterate? Task someone technology inept with finding the blog on your site. If they can do it, then your site is easy to maneuver; if not, reconsider how your website is structured and try again.

Also, make sure your website can be viewed across multiple browsers and is mobile-friendly. If your site was created with a site builder like Squarespace or Wix, this is an issue you don’t have to worry much about. If your site is difficult to view on smartphones or tablets, it is not SEO friendly. This means you’re giving your competition an opportunity to outrank you in the search results.

You aren’t just limited to these three things. There are a ton of things you can be doing to ensure your website is indexed and tracked by search engines. If you haven’t thought it already, hire a digital marketing specialist for your team to monitor and manage your website full time.

4 Tips on Mastering Multi-Location SEO for Your Business
Business owners that have to manage multiple locations and franchise owners that have to keep their franchisees in check have a unique problem on their hands. Not only do they need to manage and optimize the parent brand, but also need to avoid common mistakes and optimize the entire digital presence of every location in order for the outlet to thrive in their market and community. After all, engaging with the local community is the hallmark of good business nowadays, and you can’t expect your main office across the country to spark an emotional connection with a customer a thousand miles away.

Not only that, but you can’t expect your locations to rank high on Google this way either, especially if you haven’t done a comprehensive SEO audit in the last year. With all of that in mind, let’s break down the five tips that will allow you to master multi-location SEO and drive your brand forward as a whole.

Making an impact in the local market - As we’ve mentioned in the introduction, making an impact in the local market and ranking high in local search matters. When each and every one of your locations executes a strong SEO strategy, it can surpass other local competitors, and position itself at the top spot in the relevant SERPs. The key here lies in the word “relevant”. Understand that people residing in a different community will resonate with local brands, so you need to establish a web page for every location.

Not only do the customers like local brands, but so does Google, especially when people search for terms that fit your company’s scope of work and add location tags. Without a separate web page for each location, you stand a very small chance of appearing in those searches. So, let your franchisees stand out by developing a page for every outlet.

Build brand identity with content marketing - Content marketing has risen to prominence in recent years as one of the most powerful inbound marketing tools for growth-oriented businesses, and also for companies looking to fully optimize their SEO presence. Nowadays, content serves the unique purpose of educating and empowering the digital audience, complementing your acquisition strategy and bringing interested customers and franchisees to your doorstep.

By providing the insights and detailed franchise information about your brand to prospective customers and aspiring business owners through your content, you can easily boost word of mouth as well as the shareability of your pieces across the web, thus inspiring them to take action. Moreover, incentivized individuals will share this content with their friends and bring them to your website as well.

Keep in mind, though, you will need to develop a separate content strategy for every location in order to unlock the true SEO potential of every outlet. Google loves informative content but doesn’t care for duplicates or plagiarism, so make sure that every outlet generates content tailored to their local audience, using local keywords in order to appear in local search.

Leveraging the SEO power of GMB - There is a nifty little tool out there called Google My Business that can make all the difference for multi-location businesses and franchises. Google uses this tool to index and rank companies in its apps and search results in general. When you type in your business information into the tool, you company will rank for relevant search queries as well as complementary apps such as Maps and reviews.

Needless to say, this is immensely important for your ranking in the SERPs, especially when you’re trying to rank multiple locations in their area. Be sure to create detailed listings for every outlet, so that Google recognizes them as separate entities within your brand architecture. Don’t worry, you will find detailed guidelines on how to do this on the official GMB site.

Use online reviews to rank every location higher in the SERPS
User-generated content is also one of the more powerful marketing tactics modern businesses are not leveraging enough. You need to generate 1st party reviews on your website in order to rank higher in the SERPs and pass social proof in order to improve word of mouth within your target demographic.

However, it’s not just about generating reviews for your parent site, it’s also about generating locally relevant reviews in your architecture so that they rank higher in their local area. After all, why should someone across the country care that a customer a thousand miles away had a great experience with your brand? No, they want to see honest opinions from people in their town, their state. That’s what matters to them, and to Google.

In conclusion - When running a business with multiple locations, you need to approach the problem of marketing from a unique angle. Promoting a single location on the website will not suffice, nor will your primary marketing strategy work in every market. Instead, be sure to implement these tips in order to give every location within your franchise the tools it needs to thrive in their own communities. In turn, this will propel your brand forward as a whole.