I get to speak at WEV events as a Digital Marketing Consultant from time to time and really enjoy getting to meet many of the local entrepreneurs in Ventura and Santa Barbara County. At the conclusion of these events I get many emails and phone calls inquiring about the various services I offer, I enjoy working with WEV students because I know you all are so hungry for success and want to see your businesses thrive!
I wanted to take sometime and create a simple list of things every local business should be doing for success online!
We believe SEO is done in 3 simple phases.
Design. Rank. Convert.
Phase 1: Design or create a SEO friendly website:
Create a website, I recommend using WordPress.
Step 1: Buy a domain name and purchase hosting. You can use GoDaddy, Blue Host, Host Gator, etc.
Step 2: Make sure your WordPress website is SEO friendly by installing plugins.
• Here is a link to the top 7 wordpress plugins that every webstie should have!
Step 3: Once you have a website create your base pages:
• Home Page
• About Page
• Services Page (Eventually you will have a separate page for each of your services)
• Blog
• Contact Page
Now you have a website that has some content and is SEO friendly thanks to those plugins! Woohoo!
Phase 2: Get your website ranked!
Since the website is ready for SEO, we can start the SEO.
Step 1: Establish a presence online by creating a business profile on the top social media sites such as:
• Google My Business
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Instagram
Even if you don’t plan on heavily using each of these profiles, it’s best for you to claim the names so nobody else does.
There is hundreds of social media sites that you can create a profile on, the more of these profiles you create the more authority you will have in the search engines eyes. Each of these profiles will let you put a link to your website which will help expand your linking profile.
Step 2: Create citations on local business directories, these citations are crucial to getting you to show up in the Google Local Search Results/Google Maps.
Local citations include:
•Yelp
•Yellowpages
•Citysearch
•Manta
•Hotfrog
•Etc.
Like social media profiles, there are thousands of citations online. You don’t need to be in all of them but it is good to be in the same ones as your competitors. Contact me for a free breakdown of which ones your competitors are in!
Step 3: Create sharable content
Try to create content that people want to share! The more people are sharing your content, the more the search engines will like your website!
Phase 3: Convert traffic into leads and sales!
Now that your website is getting ranked, we need to make sure your website is actually showing an R.O.I. and is getting people to email you or call you so you have some warm leads to follow up with.
• Leverage Social Proof
• Position yourself as a market leader with video interviews
• Display your 4 and 5 star reviews!
• Re-target people who visited your website with a special offer
• Make sure you have clear and concise Calls 2 Action.