What’s the first thing you do when you go online? If you’re like most people, there’s a good chance you’re searching. In fact, 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is an effective way for businesses to increase their exposure to the people online looking for their goods and services. With smart strategies in place, SEM can put you in the right place at the right time to capture the attention of customers and increase the chances of conversion. While many small businesses may not have the budget for big paid search or social campaigns, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of tools and strategies to optimize your organic presence.
Thankfully, increasing your organic presence online is easy, and it can be done without spending. Below, we’ve provided some tips to help you amplify your presence and get found by searchers.
Take control of your business information online
Millions of people use search to find information about local businesses, which means it's important to have accurate and rich business information available. A great way to increase the chances your business will be found is to utilize
search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. The
goal of SEO is to boost your website’s rank in unpaid search results and make your business easier to find.
You can start with simple steps. First, make sure that your website is intuitive and easy to navigate on any device. Be sure that your web pages are correctly titled so that they get found by people searching for you. Use headings that incorporate keywords and are easily searchable. Integrate those keywords into your content and page descriptions and ensure content is relevant and accurate. Finally, don’t forget to leverage site analytics and optimization tools to help you maximize your website's performance.
But don’t stop at your own website. Spread the word by utilizing tools like
Bing Places for Business and Google My Business. These free, SEO-optimized listings help people find your business when they’re searching for similar businesses. Add details such as your location, phone number, and website to make it easy for customers to find you. In some cases, you can even track how often your business appears in search results as compared to similar businesses.
Grow your audience with organic content
A great way to grow your audience is by publishing fresh, engaging content. The better the content and the more people who visit, the better your search rankings. Creating rich content can help you reach a broad audience and get the word out about your products and services — at little or no cost. Use social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to post and amplify organic content to your followers.
You can also use services like LinkedIn Pages to attract and engage followers in an ongoing conversation. Use LinkedIn Pages to promote your best content and to increase the number of people following your brand and your brand’s influencers.
Here are a few more tips to help you build your organic presence:
Be consistent. Whether updating a blog or your LinkedIn account, or replying to customer service messages, consistency is key. Staying consistent reinforces the reliability of your brand. Whether it’s a direct response to a customer service email or message on social media, or posting to your blog, by responding quickly and posting reliably you help build credibility with your audience. With that consistent posting, you also help keep your visitors more engaged with your brand, helping to foster greater loyalty as well.
Establish an editorial schedule for your website and social media. Take advantage of social media scheduling tools to take the worry out of remembering to post.
Repurpose content. Posting net-new content is great but we realize that it’s not always possible or desirable. Why not get more mileage out of existing content that you already created? Repurpose infographics, blog posts, videos, and other content to engage new audiences.
Did you recently deliver a presentation at a local conference? Post the video on YouTube. Did you publish an article with some helpful tips? Turn it into an infographic and share it out on social media. Not only will you save time and resources, you’ll also extend your reach.
Use hashtags and @mentions. Finally, don’t forget about #s and @s. When you @mention people who are affiliated with a piece of content, you gain exposure to their network and expand the reach of your content and provide due credit to that contributor or partner. You can also add hashtags to join conversations that are trending — and reach new audiences in the process.
Increasing your organic presence online is a vital part of search engine marketing — and there are plenty of things you can do that can help you get found without breaking the bank. For more tips and insights to help your business get found online,
download The Dynamic Duo or check out the
on-demand webcast.