Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, can be a difficult balance, too much or too little can lead to your site being pushed down to the second page of search results. While larger agribusinesses may be able to hire a full time employee whose sole purpose is to focus on SEO, this isn’t often the case for smaller agribusinesses. Are they forever doomed to the end of all search results? No, not necessarily. SEO is a balancing act, and small changes can lead your site toward the top of search results. Here are four ways to improve your search rankings while staying true to your brand.
Tip 1 – Target unique keywords
While all of us would love to be the top result on every page, unfortunately, that is not always possible. Oftentimes, accomplishing this takes a significant investment via ads that target very common keywords. As a small business, our audiences are often more niche. They’re searching more specific keywords, and usually more than one word at a time.
For example, say you’re an organization that focuses on sustainability in the agriculture industry. When your audience searches for “sustainability,” it’s unlikely that you’ll show up as the top result from this keyword. Instead, try targeting more specific keywords, like “Kentucky ag sustainability” or “Ohio grain organization,” or any keyword that makes your business unique.
You can do this by organically using your top keywords more on your site. Instead of constantly using a pronoun in a sentence like “we” or “it”, mention your name or product. The more you use a keyword the higher you will rank when someone searches that word. Krista at Ascend Business Growth does a great job in this article explaining How to Add Keywords to Your Website Using Best Practices.
Tip 2 – Create external and internal links
The way that search engines rank results is by keywords first. Then, by level of importance. But what makes a page important? One key factor is external and internal links.
Think of your site like an island. If your island only has a one-way ticket in, it will be very difficult to gain visitors. However, if your island has multiple connections in and out, access becomes easier for more visitors. This is roughly how search engines see websites. Without connections to the rest of the internet users will end up “stuck” on your island. Add links on your site to boost its visibility.
Tip 3 – Make it mobile friendly
Mobile is taking over the internet more and more with over 55% of users viewing sites from their phone or tablet. With this trend ever-increasing search engines are viewing mobile responsive sites as more important than its non-responsive counterpart. If viewers have trouble viewing your content via mobile they are less likely to stay on your site, leading them back to their original search results.
Tip 4 – Quality content over quantity
Search engines are prioritizing quality over quantity when it comes to content on your site. One way that you can improve their SEO is to fix any content that is proven to be low quality.
Low quality content includes….
- Out-of-date content
- Spelling or grammatical errors
- Pages overloaded with keywords
- No purpose
Out-of-date content and spelling errors are the most common perpetrators of low-quality content. The good news is, these are easy fixes.
Another common factor that contributes to ranking for low-quality content is keyword-loaded pages. Keyword loading a site means that there has been an over-abundance of text (keywords) added that are not visible to the user, typically. While you might think this is helping your site, search engines can now identify when websites are purposely overfilling their pages with keywords. To discourage this type of inorganic approach, search engines now push this content far down in the search rankings.
The last indicator of low-quality content is a purposeless page or site. Have you ever loaded a page and asked yourself, “What am I looking at here?” These are the pages we are talking about, they have no purpose to the user. This lack of purpose and oftentimes little to no content leads the user back to the search engine almost immediately. Search engines will recognize the fast bounce rate of users and start to lower the ranking of your site or page.
Conclusion
SEO is a balancing act. The best tips to improve your site should always allow you to stay genuine to your brand. While the internet will have many suggestions on how to improve your SEO these suggestions should be taken with a grain of salt. Too much or too little of any tip will worsen your site’s SEO. And if a tip or trick sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
