When you hear SEO, do you curse at everything around you and search for a place to bury your head in the sand? We sure have, and we understand your frustrations.
In today’s world, much of what we do is centered around instant gratification, and SEO absolutely does not fit in that category—it’s a marathon, not a sprint. No matter what anyone tells you, SEO can take up to a year or longer for you to see any type of results.
However, that doesn’t mean that it takes a long time to get started with SEO. There are a few things you can do right now to quickly get this baby moving in the right direction. If you spend just 20 minutes a day following our seven-day plan, you’ll kick-start the SEO process and be on the path towards success.
DAY 1: Title Tags
These are the key to telling Google where and how to “file” your webpages online. To boost your visibility in searches, make sure the most important words are included in your title tags.
Ex: “Online Social Media Marketing Mentoring – Socially Curated”
DAY 2: Label Images
Google doesn’t crawl (log) graphics and photos, so make sure your graphic and image file names are labeled with what they are. You should label them without any hidden text and put dashes between the words.
Ex: “socially-curated-office-workspace”
DAY 3: Keywords
Naturally integrate keywords for your services or products in the copy on your website, blogs, and social media posts. However, do not “keyword stuff” by making it obvious to Google which keywords you’re targeting.
DAY 4: Internal Links
Link internally within your website and blog (outside of your navigation menu) to show Google that you value your content and it should, too. Link blog posts and pages that deal with similar topics and subjects.
DAY 5: Content is KING
Google ranks content that is valuable, and if you’re not writing it —meaning your audience isn’t showing up—you won’t even be a blip on Google’s radar. Make sure you are sharing valuable content and giving your audience a reason to interact with you.
DAY 6: Citations + Directories
Ranking locally should be a major goal of your SEO kick-start. To start this strategy, work on getting your business listed on all the online directories you can with the exact same information on each of them. Check out moz.com/products/local for one of our favorite directory + citations resources.
DAY 7: Consistency, Consistency, Consistency
SEO is a long game—it’s going to be close to a year before you can really track any changes. During this time, you need to continue regularly blogging useful content and updating your website. Make sure you remove information and content once it’s no longer relevant (think contests/ giveaways) to show Google you are consistently active.
