As a small business, it can be hard to stand out in the crowd and compete with larger companies. Fortunately, digital marketing can help level the playing field, allowing small businesses to reach their target audience and maximize success. In this blog post by Mach60, you'll learn often overlooked digital marketing tips that small businesses can use to grow their business, build brand awareness, and increase their profits.
Optimize your site for SEO and Mobile
Having a website is a wonderful way to promote yourself or your business online, but it won’t do you much good if no one can find it. Optimizing your website for search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to boost its visibility and ensure that people can easily find it. By optimizing your website for SEO, you can draw more traffic to your website, improve your search engine rankings, and improve your website’s overall performance.
To have a complete SEO friendly website you'll need to focus on multiple factors. Keyword research, content optimization, backlink building and more. If you find yourself struggling to rank or aren't sure where to start, Mach60 offers SEO optimization services with free quotes. Let's take a look at some easy ways to boost your site that many business owners overlook.
Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions provide a summary of the contents of a web page. As such, they can be incredibly valuable to both website visitors and search engine optimization. They are snippets of text that appear below the title of a webpage in search engine results. The descriptions act as a brief summary of what a webpage is about, and their purpose is to inform the user about the website’s content and convince them to click the link.
On the backend, a Meta description is part of the head section of your website. It's a tag in the HTML code of the page which you can edit directly. Here is a typical meta description using the Mach60 homepage.
If you're having trouble finding the meta description in the code, there is no need to worry. Most website builders like Wix allow you edit your description through a text box.
A good Meta description is detailed but gets to the point and persuades the reader to visit your website. Before you go writing a description, you'll want to keep in mind a few things.
Use keywords and stay on topic
Incorporate your target keywords into the description. This gives your viewers confirmation that your page has the information they are looking for and helps with SEO. Remember to include clues that tell your visitor what will be on the page. Finally, avoid keyword stuffing, include your keywords once or twice and let description tell the visitor what your page is about.
Include Alt Text
Including website alt text is an essential part of website design and SEO. By definition, Alt text (alternative text) is text that is added to images on a website in order to help search engines better understand the content on the page. Alt text is a great way to make your site more accessible and can help with SEO ranking.
Description is key
A common mistake users make happens when they rush through the site images and add one or two words. When writing alt text details are important. The best way to write an alt text is to give an accurate vison of the image. You should be able to close your eyes and get a reasonable description of the image by the sentence alone. You'll also want to keep the text short, around 125 characters max. This is because screen readers often cut text after a certain number of words.
Alt text best practices
Don't be afraid to include your keywords in your alt text. This helps search engines determine if your content is relevant. Prioritize giving an accurate description and if it makes sense use a keyword if possible. Just like with meta descriptions you'll want to avoid keyword stuffing. A bad description won't hurt your site but if Google thinks your forcing keywords in this will hurt your ranking.
We know that writing short, detailed descriptions and avoiding keyword stuffing is good but let's talk about common mistakes that are made when writing alt text. Avoid using "picture of" or "image of" in your description, it's not needed and takes up character space. Also don't use images or links in the text description. Finally, don't forget to give alt text to your website's buttons. The "subscribe" button at the bottom of your newsletter form needs alt text just like your images.
Optimize for Mobile
According to a study by Statista, mobile devices were responsible for 58.99 percent of global website traffic. As more and more people are using their mobile devices to access the internet, it is becoming increasingly important for websites to be optimized for mobile. By optimizing your website for mobile, you can ensure that your users have the best possible experience when they visit your website, regardless of the device they are using.
Build a responsive site
A responsive site means that your page designs can be viewed easily on multiple devices and monitors. Modern website builders usually offer themes and layouts that are responsive but when customizing your site it's easy to make changes that don't work well with mobile. To avoid this, keep your website as clean as possible. This means avoiding plugins, pop-ups and images that aren't essential to your visitor. After finishing a page, we recommend previewing it on a mobile device before moving on. Elements that look great on desktop may not translate well to mobile.
One of the best digital marketing tips is test your core web vitals
Google uses something call your Core Web Vitals to test your sites functionality. Your web vitals are measured in three ways. LCP - How long it takes for the largest element on your page to load. The lower your LCP the better. FID - How quick a user can interact with your site on loading. CLS - How much your layout moves around as it loads. The lower your CLS the better. Google takes these measurements into consideration, and they can have an impact on your ranking. Taking these measurements into account will offer some protection to your SERP ranking.
Optimizing your website for mobile can get tricky and there's more to it than the tips we provide here. At Mach60 we offer free quotes on building and fixing your site to work best on desktop and both.
Engage with your customers
Engaging with customers is a key part of growing your online success. There are a ton of ways to do this and luckily most are easy to do with the right knowledge and tools. Let's take a look at some easy ways to help boost your online presence, specifically email automation and blogs.
Content Blogs
At Mach60 we believe blogs are a great way to get your business noticed. It is also a great way to engage with your audience and establish yourself as one of the top performers in your field. The content of a blog will change depending on the business but there are a few guidelines every blog should follow.
Use simple language
Research shows most readers in the country read at around an 8th grade level. Google takes note of this when ranking. Use short sentences to communicate your message. Avoid adjectives and technical speak and replace with links to other articles if possible. You want all readers in your audience to be comfortable reading your site.
Understand your viewers and competition
Know what your target audience wants and provide it. Create professional but easy to understand content that makes your users choose your site over your competition. Think about advice you can give and problems your viewers want solved. With that in mind, start thinking about what terms they will type in the search bar. Use these words to help craft keywords and form ideas for great posts.
Not sure where to start or feeling overwhelmed? Let Mach60 create the perfect blog to represent your business. We offer free quotes and clear plans on how to create a blog that fits your needs.
Automate your outreach
As your business grows you may run into the problem of keeping in contact with your customers. CRM's and services like Mailchimp are a great way to stay in touch with your customers and give your business a professional touch. Automating emails allows businesses to save time, money, and energy by sending pre-programmed emails with personalized messages. Let's look at a few ways automating your emails can help you.
Drip Campaigns
A drip campaign is a series of emails that are scheduled to send over time. An action is needed to send each email out called a "trigger". The trigger could be a successful checkout, birthday or date. After the trigger your emails start "dripping" into the prospect's inbox. A successful drip campaign should have a clear goal, have a personal feel to it and give value to the prospect in some way. When setting up your campaigns having a clear idea of the conditions for your trigger is always a good start.
Newsletters
The main purpose of a newsletter should be to inform or entice your target audience. It should promote your business without being intrusive. The person receiving your newsletter should be comfortable receiving your emails. Just like with drip campaigns your newsletters should have a clear message and idea behind them.
Email Automation Do's and Don'ts
Subject lines - At Mach60 when we review a client's email marketing the subject lines are something that always needs work. Make your subject lines short and clear. Avoid exclamation points, all caps and spam trigger words.
Personalize your content- Many campaign systems allow you to use personalization tokens. Make use of these to give your emails a personal feel.
Make Unsubscribing easy- It's tempting to hide your unsubscribe button at the bottom of your emails but making it easy for your customer to opt out is always a better choice. Your email has something called a "reputation score" behind it. Sending out tons of emails and not getting any opens can hurt your deliverability. At Mach60 we believe in practicing email list hygiene. This means making it easy for subscribers to opt out.
Email lists- Always use engaged subscribers for your send lists. We strongly advise against purchasing email lists. This can end up with your domain being blacklisted. Instead use converting forms to organically grow your lists. Opting out of cold contacts will give your business protection in the long run.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is essential in today's competitive environment. A strong online presence can help you reach new customers, increase brand recognition, and drive more sales. If you feel like your encountering resistance, need guidance or just want to boost your growth the experts at Mach60 are here to help!
Comments