Rivertech Digital®’s Specialist SEO tips for all business types looking to shine on the web.

With every new online business adventure, you have three vital elements that will determine whether or not your business will make it off the ground and, if so, for how long?

The number one most important element is search engine optimisation. This is because before you even consider spending money advertising your business through Google or social media, you need to make sure each key step is implemented with your website first. After all, without the product, you have nothing to advertise. If you are an online business, your website is the Holy Grail, aka the beating heart of your business.

That is why we developed this worry-free guide showcasing the best and most effective ways to get your business seen on the web.

Before we dive in further, the final two vital elements of running a healthy and successful business online is social media awareness and thirdly a clearly defined marketing strategy. Both of which must seamlessly connect with one another. For example; you have a fully optimised SEO website and you want to advertise and links became your new best friend. Because without links there is no way to drive traffic through your social media channels back to your website.

Furthermore, without a clearly defined marketing strategy in the works, neither your social media channels nor your website will see much success. Driving brand awareness through social media and expert tips for building the most profound marketing strategy is something we will dive into further in a separate blog. For now, let’s turn our attention back to search engine optimisation and the best, most accurate, and successful ways to make your business shine on the web.  

Decide a list of keywords that best represent your business and the services provided.

First off having a list of keywords ready to use that accurately represent your business's branding, services and overall purpose online is the first step you need to take. Consider this part of the pre-planning stage. So when you’re website is going through its development stages, it’s important to really think about the purpose you wish to provide.

So when your keywords are implemented across every page on the website, Google’s web crawlers can pick each keyword more accurately and place your website in the correct list of search results. This will mean your website will be noticed more efficiently and by the right demographic.

This being said if you are new to the online world of business you may be wondering what keywords are and how many you will need to drive traffic to your website. Let’s address this part now.

So what exactly are keywords and how many do I need to use?

Keywords are singular terms or phrases that directly correspond with the branding and services of your business. Keywords are picked up by ‘web crawlers’ and used by search engines to accurately show your website in all search results. As it stands there are currently no restrictions or limits on the number of keywords you can use. Although it’s essential to only use keywords that best reflect your business.

Avoid using multiple of the same keywords as this will cause you to compete against yourself in the search engine rankings and you will achieve fewer results. In this case, a key thing to remember is ‘less is more.’ So the fewer keywords you use, the brighter your business will shine.

Use URLs that accurately represent each page title and reflect your chosen keywords. Using URLs relative to each page title and keyword makes it easier for search engines’ little minions (web crawlers) to analyse each URL of your website simultaneously and place the webpage corresponding to that URL in the correct list of rankings. In simplistic terms, this drastically improves your website's search visibility online.

So while you may think about creating as many URLs as possible to solely include a keyword in them. We strongly advise against doing so as this will indefinitely cause more harm than good. We also advise you to make sure that your URLs are kept short, simple, and not overly complicated. Including too many hyphens in your URLs can hinder your search engine results too. Think smarter, not harder!

Choose the keywords you would like to hyperlink on your website. And link them to the relevant pages.

Now that you have all the keywords you need. It’s time to think about which keywords you would like to hyperlink and to which pages. This is the key foundation that will determine whether your website is fully optimised, polished, and relishing outstanding results for your business.

By hyperlinking keywords specifically, you will harness a range of benefits including; building your website architecture more effectively, increasing the credibility of your brand, making it easier for users to navigate to your website, multiplying the number of page views, developing a greater link equity and finally vastly improving website crawlability, which is something we have touched base on earlier in the blog.

So please add hyperlinking keywords to your ‘business bucket list’ right away. Thank you!

Avoid populating your website with too much content.

Adding too much content to your website comes with a number of negative effects like the performance and speed of your website being affected, web crawlers having to work much harder so that users can find you, users feeling overwhelmed when they eventually land on your website, the key messages and meaning behind both your business and brand is significantly drowned out and navigating your website becomes much more difficult for users.

These are the type of icky side effects that no business wants to deal with therefore, we advise that you do yourself and your business a favour and steer away from adding too much content to your website. If the website you have currently is massive and populated with pieces of content here and there, that’s okay provided there is no unused content sitting in the backend of your website collecting dust and slowing it down.

Rule out using lots of duplicate content.  

In the same way, storing lots of duplicate content is a huge no when it comes to SEO. Web crawlers will suffer a massive headache while collectively analysing all of this. Remember, web crawlers are like your best friend. They will boost your brand credibility and user experience so if you treat them right, they will treat you right also.

Make sure all media have accurate alt-text titles and descriptions before uploading.

Another key piece of advice is before uploading any content to your website, you must take extra care to ensure that you fill in the ‘alt text’ box with each image or video you upload.

Now you may be thinking ‘It’s only an alt text description box, it doesn’t make much difference.’ But trust me with years of experience and gained expertise working in the digital marketing industry… Adding both an alt text title and description makes all the difference to the way web crawlers notice your content as this will increase its visibility.

What an alt text title and description should look like.

Your alt-text title needs to be short snappy and straight to the point. For example, take a look at the photo below.

You may put something like:

Alt title: Entrepreneur sat at a desk wearing a blue shirt.

Alt text: Entrepreneur sat at a desk wearing a blue shirt working on the computer.

*Now this is descriptive and straight to the point but it doesn’t reflect your brand or the purpose behind what the image is representing. So we need to spice up the alt text section a bit to meet these requirements. Please see the example below:

Here is your image:

Alt title: Entrepreneur working on the computer - Rivertech Digital®

Alt text: This image shows an entrepreneur working on the computer, carrying out his daily duties effectively.

This time round the alt title is much better because it includes the brand name followed by a very brief and simple description. The alt text is better because it is not too long-winded and emphasises the purpose of the photo, which is the entrepreneur working on the computer and carrying out his daily duties effectively.

Keep all content updated regularly.

Keeping all your content updated on a regular basis significantly helps to boost engagement to your website, and encourages the use of ‘backlinks.’ This is when another website links to your website and vice versa. Backlinks are optional but using them will generate better results, and establish more leads and engagement.

Other benefits include more frequent indexing which means your content is likely to attract additional web crawlers and while this is not likely to increase your ranking you will still benefit from more web crawlers enhancing the overall user experience and growing more awareness of your brand.

Also, updating your content means you will benefit from higher search rankings. For instance, if you posted a blog in October 2022 but didn’t update the same blog till October 2023. The search engine web crawlers will index you higher as they are most attracted to the most recent piece of content you have.

Finally, one of the key reasons for ensuring your content remains updated frequently is your client base. Without frequent content updates your clients will eventually lose interest and go look for business elsewhere. I know that’s something no business owner wants to hear. But from experience, it’s true.

Steer clear of advertisements likely to distract your client base.

Every business owner knows that advertising is a wonderful opportunity to take their brand and place it right in the eye line of their client base because eventually the profits come rolling in and before you know it your business is shining for sure. But there are limits.

Yes, limits and I use that phrase lightly because here at Rivertech Digital® we don’t do limits either. What I mean by limits is one or two simple, short, and straight-to-the-point advertisements posted on your website are perfectly fine.

 But when you have a collection of advertisements bombarding the user's screen and taking away their choice to actually engage with your brand this is when your clients will start to become extremely unhappy. So always remember to keep a clean user interface at all times.

Increase awareness of your website.

This is something I know I have touched base on a few times throughout this blog. Increasing the awareness of your brand and website through search engine optimisation will really drive your business forward and get your brand known to thousands if not millions of people worldwide, depending on your target audience. Niche demographics are much more challenging to target. So choose your keywords wisely and keep a copy of this blog to help you.

Actively monitor the performance of your website.  

Always remember to keep an eye on how your website is performing daily to ensure that your website is performing as it should and output the results your business needs to climb up through the rankings to the very top. Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.

My personal favourite is SEMrush with its clean, resourceful, highly functional, and crisp user interface. I have used the SEMrush tool for many years and I find it to be the best of the bunch. 

The main benefits of monitoring the performance of your website are that your website will also perform so much faster and more efficiently, you will experience fewer downtimes, and be able to identify and reduce latency to your website.

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Thank you for taking the time to read through our new blog covering the 10 key benefits of Email Marketing. We truly appreciate your time and how much support you are showing our business. Subscribe to our Newsletter today for the latest information on when our next blog will be released and Get in Touch via the Contact Us form on our website or email: rivertechdigital2023@gmail.com.