What Now? Moving Forward With Your New Website

For budding entrepreneurs and aspiring influences, taking that leap of faith and setting up the website of your online business or information platform is an exciting episode. But now that you’ve given your venture a face online, you have to find a way to get people to come visit your site.

While there are plenty of resources and channels to market your venture to your target audience, it is important to remember that the perfect strategy for increasing your internet visibility will take time to develop. There is no singular template for marketing your website. You need to do your research and reach out to digital marketing experts who can provide you with valuable insight on SEO and the evolving landscape of Google search. To help prepare you for the journey, here are some helpful insights as to what SEO is all about.

Defining SEO and its scope

Google is the number one resource for finding anything and everything under the sun. Whether you are looking for a lovely Thai restaurant in your neighbourhood, or checking what’s showing in your local movie theatre, your first instinct most of the time is to pick up your mobile phone and “Google it.”

And therein lies the importance of search engine optimisation. SEO helps people find your website online by making it visible on search results for specific keywords.  By focusing your SEO strategy around a specific set of keywords, you can make your website appear for relevant searches, thus making you a readily available resource to your target online audience.

The key here is to get your website to rank on the first page of Google search results pages. Why? Here are some juicy stats for you to bite into:

• As of August 2016, Google has garnered almost 80 per cent of the global search share.
• Google has seen an increase in the number of searches it handles, from 1.2 trillion in 2012 to more than 2 trillion in 2016.
• 90 per cent of searchers do not go beyond the first page of search results – they either find what they want on the first page, or enter another query in the search bar.
• The first 10 positions of search results net 94 per cent of all the clicks.
• If you have the first position in SERPs, your site will get approximately 34 per cent of all clicks.

Basically, the higher up you are in search results, the better your chances of attracting your target market. This involves crafting a targeted online marketing and SEO strategy, specifically designed to reach your choice audience.

Developing an SEO strategy

Creating a complete digital marketing strategy involves understanding the needs of your target audience, and aligning the design, structure, functionality, and visibility of your website accordingly. It is best to work with digital marketing experts who can analyse what your site is looking to offer to your audience and how your online platform is developed.

Gaining a strong grasp of how the site is built will help in identifying potential challenges, and developing plans to circumvent or overcome them. This means the on-page strategy, content, or back-link profile of your website might take a different course from that of your competitors.

Another consideration is keyword targeting. In order to target the right keywords for your site, step into the shoes of your target customer or audience and think, “If I were a potential customer/reader/follower, what would I type into Google if I wanted to find my site?” Doing this will help you choose which keywords will work best for your SEO strategy.

If you have an online store that is targeting a worldwide market, you might want to select keywords that cover your product line. On the other hand, if you are managing a small, intimate café and patisserie and want to attract customers around your locale, then add keywords that incorporate your specific location.

Finally, it is vital to develop a strong on-page and off-page strategy that caters to the requirements of Google and your online audience at the same time. A robust on-page strategy will improve your credibility in the eyes of Google; fresh, regularly updated content will have people coming back to your site; and a growing off-page strategy boosts your authority with links from relevant sites. Together, these signals tell Google that your site is a worthy resource for your target keyword.

Have questions or insights regarding this topic? Feel free to let us know through the comments section below!