As a business owner, you should know how important it is to use SEO (search engine optimization) in the right way. Doing this will boost your position in the search engine result rankings, and the higher you are in those results, the more likely it is that someone will click on your site and, ideally, make a purchase from you as well.  

Yet even though SEO is clearly important, and doing it correctly will lead to more sales, not everyone is up to speed on how it works or what to do. If you feel you could do more, or you’re wondering if you should do more, read on. We can reveal some interesting SEO secrets that will boost your business even more, and put you well ahead of your competition. 

 Hire An Expert 

One of the most important things to know about SEO is that it can be very complicated. Although it is possible to do it yourself, trying to keep up with all the changes and new ideas, ensuring that you always stick to the rules, and essentially know how to use SEO in the best ways to put your website in a good position in Google’s results, is going to be hard, especially when you have so many other things to think about as a business owner trying to grow their business.  

This is why hiring an expert to help you with your SEO, or take it over entirely, can be exactly the right thing to do. Finding a local SEO expert to give you advice and plan out just how to use your content to position yourself correctly in terms of search engine rankings will take away the worry of SEO from you and will ensure that your business gets the exposure it needs. Outsourcing isn’t always something a business owner is comfortable with either due to a loss of control or the cost involved (or both), but it is worth considering doing it because it could make a hugely positive difference, and not just for your SEO but your marketing, your finances, and your IT needs too. 

Images 

If you do intend to continue working on your SEO by yourself, or you want to do small elements of it while leaving the main bulk to an expert, you must think about your images. Having images within your content is important for several reasons including the fact that it will make people more interested in the post or blog (a wall of text is never very exciting, no matter what it might actually say), and because you can use them to enhance your SEO.  

How is this done? It’s all down to the ‘alt-tab attribute’ within the images. When you use this SEO technique, your site is more likely to show up within search results because you essentially have an additional layer of SEO; you are adding keywords to your images. 

Make Your Site Faster 

It might surprise you to learn that the faster your site is, the better your search engine rankings. Although this isn’t part of SEO in specific terms, in a general way it must be considered – no matter how well you might be using keywords and images and links, if your site is slow it is still going to be penalized, and won’t rank as well.  

If you can use plenty of SEO techniques and also speed up your site, your rankings will increase massively, and the difference will be amazing. Speeding up your site might not be as simple as it sounds as there are a variety of factors that can slow it down in the first place, but some things to consider include making your images smaller and ensuring there are no hidden Java scripts in your code. 

Include Listicles 

If you’re ever at a loss as to what to include in your content and what to blog about next, remember that ‘listicles’ (literally those pieces of content that talk about the 10 best this or the top five that and so on) are not only an ideal place filler, but they are useful when it comes to SEO as well; incorporating one or two listicles into your content schedule each month will benefit you.  

The reason that listicles are so useful is that they are the most shared form of content. People like them because they are simple to understand and they are a quick, easy read, so you’ll have more readers too. More readers plus more shares means that search engine bots will notice you’re a legitimate and popular site and rank you highly accordingly. 

Backlinks 

Backlinks are links that go from your site to other websites, and they can be extremely useful when it comes to your SEO strategy. Of course, simply having a lot of backlinks within your content isn’t enough, and having the wrong links can even penalize you and drop your search engine ranking.  

The links you have in your content should point to high-quality sites that are regularly accessed by many people and that rank highly themselves. If you do this, Google will see your site as being just as informative and useful as the one you’re ranking too, and clearly, this is going to be helpful. Remember, though; too many links are just as bad as none at all, and having a select few is a far better way to use your SEO ideas in the right way. 

Update Your Old Content 

Most people don’t think about their old blogs once they’ve been written and published. They have done their job and it’s time to move on to new content, isn’t that right? The truth is that, in terms of SEO, your old content can be highly useful, and if you check through it regularly and update it when it needs to be updated (or when you can add something useful to the post – even a sentence can be enough), your Google rankings can improve.  

As strange as this may seem, it’s all down to the search engine bots that crawl through all the content on a website to determine how reliable and legitimate that website is. The more updated everything is, even older posts, the more useful your site will be regarded as, and the more of your blogs will be given in the results when people search. 

Conclusion 

There is nothing quite as beneficial as having a good SEO expert on hand to help you, whether you have them do everything for you, or you simply use them to gain information and advice. However, knowing these few secrets to SEO could help you gain momentum in the search engine rankings, boosting your business in the way you want for success.