2. Write good title tags for pages

Writing good title tags for the important pages of your website is the blocking and tackling of SEO. One of the ways that search engines know that a given page is a good match for an individual’s search is if the words match the title of the page. For instance if you title a page “Portland Bike Repair Shop” , Google will determine that your page is relevant for people searching for help with their broken bike in the Portland area.

3. Start a company blog and write blog articles

A blog is one of the most effective tactics in ranking highly for a large number of different keyword phrases. If you write 10 blog articles that each focus on a separate keyword phrase, you have a chance of ranking on the first page for 10 (or more) different keyword phrases. A majority of searches in Google are for specific, long-tail phrases that have low competition. If you write an article about specific topics related to your industry, you will likely gain a little more traffic for each article you write. After a while, these base hits can turn into a significant volume of traffic to your site.

4. Register your business in local directories

Getting trusted sites to link to you is probably the most important thing you can do for SEO. Unfortunately, you don’t have direct control over other sites linking to you, so you have to be creative. One low hanging fruit that can get you some links quickly is by registering your business in local directories such as Yelp, Citysearch, Angie’s List, Google Local Business Center, Bing Local, Yahoo Local, and any local review site you can think of. While all of these links may not “count” for SEO credit, this is something every business should do because at a minimum people can find you in these directories and follow the link to your site.

5. Set Up Google Analytics

One of the fun parts of SEO is seeing your traffic grow as a result of your hard work. Setting up Google Analytics is free and will allow you to see a lot of valuable information about your site including: daily and monthly traffic, bounce rate (how many people left the site after the first page they saw), how people are getting to your site (direct traffic, search engines, or referrals), keywords used in search engines to get to your site, and much more.

This post has been republished from Sparkplug Digital, an online marketing firm in Seattle.

If your customers are likely to go on the web to search for information, then your business can benefit from online marketing that focuses on attracting new leads to your website and nurturing those leads into new customers. Americans are spending more time on the internet and less time on traditional forms of media. Also, Americans are tossing out their Yellow Pages because it is much easier to find what they are looking for on Google.

Because of Americans shift to using the internet, every business should have a website where potential or existing customers can find information about your business. The website can provide basic information like hours of operation, location, and phone number but it should also communicate why your offering is different from other providers and have a clear call to action. The website can also gather potential customer information which can be stored in a customer database of leads so that you can nurture those relationships until they become customers. You can also provide additional resources like a blog that provides useful and valuable information which can help build relationships with customers.

Just putting up a website does not mean people can find you. Search engine optimization and Pay-per-click are online marketing tools that can attract more visitors to your site by improving your rankings on search engines for a specific set of keywords that your customers would likely type in.

So in conclusion, if you want to attract new customers online, you should plan and execute an online marketing strategy. Let us know if we can help.

2. Every new blog post is a potential source for inbound links to your site.

3. Blogs give you a platform to speak directly to your customer.

4. Blogs are a place to publish content that solves problems of your buyer persona (the types of people who are likely to buy your product).

5. Blogs allow you to cover a wide range of topics related to your industry, which takes advantage of the long tail effect in Google searches (About 75% of searches are for unpopular phrases).

6. Blogs encourage direct feedback from your customers via comments.

7. Blogs encourage you to think deeply about your field and continuously learn so you can write insightful articles.

8. Blogs allow you to give free gifts (in the form of valuable content) which can develop a relationship with the potential customer.

9. Each blog post is a potential landing page for potential customers to learn more about your company.

10. By frequently updating your blog, Google will send its search bots to your site more often. Google often favors sites with constantly updated and fresh content.

11. Blog articles, when written in a casual voice, can show customers that there are real people behind the company and it’s not just a soul-less corporation.

12. Business websites that blog tend to get more traffic to their site. See Study Shows Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors

13. Blogs tend to attract first time visitors. In a Compendium Blogware survey of 266 companies, 2/3rds reported that over 80% of visitors to their blog were new visitors.

Can you share additional reasons why every business should have a blog?

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbowlersr/ / CC BY-ND 2.0