You want your website to rank high, right? We talk to clients all the time about this. Good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a lot of little details like making sure your website is set up right, to good, compelling page titles, using images, using video and so on - BUT there's really just one thing you need to know... it's all about the website visitor. It's the user experience that is king.
We've been saying that a lot but I saw it reinforced two times today in articles I was reading.
Simple Tips To Set The Stage For Local SEO In 2015 (searchengineland.com)
The most important point we try to hammer home to potential clients is that you can’t fool the nerds at Google. Everything you do, both on and off your site, should be working toward the end goal of making your user experience awesome… not trying to fool Google into placing you higher on search results pages.
and then Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was asked about why people's Facebook posts aren't reaching as far as they used to:
Mark Zuckerberg: Why Your Facebook Page Is Reaching Fewer Customers (inc.com)
Competition to show up on users' newsfeeds is at an all-time high, Zuckerberg said, so companies have to be smart about what they share on their Facebook page.
"Post content your customers want to see," he said. "We optimize the newsfeed to create the best experience for our users, not to help businesses reach as many people as possible."
Think about your website visitors and what they want. Quit tooting your own horn and help them. That's it.
Here's what your website visitors want:
To do this, you need a website that works well on mobile devices. The best way to do this is by using mobile responsive design. This is one design that adjusts to whatever screen size the web page is being viewed on. This is a must. If you're not doing this, you're behind the times and you have already lost lots of traffic.
You need to do actual content development. This isn't simple writing content, it's developing it. This means doing research and writing about specific things, on purpose. You must invest time and resources into writing content. This applies to all industries. No matter what industry your business is in, you need to now have a department (or at least a plan) for getting content development done and you need to publish content. This content should be a mixture of text, images (including infographics) and video. Along with that, publish PDF reports that people can exchange their email address for and then download. This builds your contact list, which is pure gold... by the way.
Your content needs to be not just good but awesome. Make it "share worthy" content. You know, the type of thing you're not embarrassed to share on Facebook or Twitter. It should be something you know will help people. Sometimes, this content is called "stick" content.
I've said this before - any and basically every business now needs to be in the publishing business. I don't care if you sell industrial rolls of paper - it doesn't matter, every business now needs to be publishing content. The old way is the phone book, right? Phone book ads were easy - you think about it once a year, create the ad and you're done. That item's checked off the list for the whole year. Well, guess what? Nobody uses a phone book anymore - they are searching. The phone book now is billions and trillions of pages, essentially. If you're not at the top of your category, then forget it.
The bottom line here is that you need to think about your website visitor. Give them the best experience possible. Maybe you need a new website or maybe you just need to get some great content published on your blog or news section. Make it something people are asking for and want to know. You give it away and you get trust back. Your website should give away great information but also provide a range of "calls to action" where you're asking people to do something. This ask might be big or small. Big would be buying something. Small would be asking them to like or share your content.
Once you have a website that provides the best experience possible - on all devices and uses great text/copy, images and video - then you can promote it. You'll need some ways to get people to your website and a little boost to get your content to rank high. Having great content on your website isn't a "built it and they will come" type of scenario. Your content needs a boost - we can help with that. You then also need to plan on consistently publishing this great content - either once a week or once a month but get on a schedule.
Webstix can help with all of this. This is the new SEO. There are no tricks, no gimmicks. It's just the best user experience possible - plain and simple. You might not have the expertise to set up your website the right way but that's why we're here. We can set you up with a website that's easy to add content to so that you can take it over and go from there. Ideally, you'll want to hire someone (either full or part time - depending on the amount of competition you're dealing with) to work on your social media and developing content. That person might not be a website developer, so you'll need a company like Webstix to help you get there. And if you're not ready to hire someone yet, we can help you get great content developed - we have some great copywriters that we use and we're glad to help you set up an affordable plan.
Again, the new SEO - that's where we're at now. The rules are simple - it's about the website visitor, user, you know... real people! Not search engines. Keep that as your focus and you absolutely cannot go wrong.
Contact Webstix now and let's start a conversation!
-Tony
