An Easy SEO Checklist for Better Search Results

Without a thoughtful SEO strategy, the chances of your website’s showing up in search engine results pages (SERPS) are next to nil. SEO is what helps improve your brand’s visibility and drives traffic to your site. Here is an easy checklist to help increase the SEO value of your website.

1. Make sure your website is responsive—that it translates to mobile devices. This is by far the most critical-mission issue right now. Take a look at your website on your phone. If you have to do a lot of manipulation, if the text is tiny and inaccessible, it’s time to think about a new website. Google is punishing the desktop sites that have not created mobile versions. Google has created this site that will quickly tell you if your site is mobile friendly or not.
2. Create a unique, branded domain name.
3. Create an HTML site map for easier indexing by search engines.
4. Also submit an XML sitemap that will speed up indexing.
5. Use Heading Tags (H Tags) for headings and subheadings throughout your site.
6. Use images. Audiences these days are sophisticated, the expectations high. Quality, high-resolution images are affordable on stock photo sites, generally as packages.
7. Label your images with the name of your company, image_name of image. If the image doesn’t show up—and it may not on mobile devices—users will have an idea of what they’re missing.
8. Optimize keywords, using them in title, H tags and description. Forget keyword stuffing; focus on keyword placement.
9. Develop internal contextual linking strategy.
10. Create more SEO value by using alt tags on your images—additional fields that you can fill in with the name of your business.
11. Do write your own metadescriptions; otherwise, you’ll be stuck with the default, which won’t do you any favors. If you’re using WordPress, install Yoast and fill in these fields for each page. Metadescriptions provide a 160-character overview of each page on SERPs.
12. Reduce popups and distracting ads to avoid losing traffic. Let’s face it—these are just too annoying.
13. Optimize load time: make sure images are complete hogs that prevents your site from loading.
14. Check for broken links, which can hurt your ranking. This is part of periodic site maintenance. If you’re linking to external sites, these often disappear after a while, so your pages need to be updated accordingly.
15. Quality content that isn’t duplicated. There are different opinions about landing page length, but many experts recommend 300+ words to rank well. Frontload this, with the most important information in the first paragraph, above the fold, including your keywords. One thing that’s nonnegotiable: well-written, quality content. If you’re a crappy writer, find someone else to write this for you--talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing--this is what we do!

Keep it simple

Never—ever—forget that people will be pulling this up on their phones. Something else to be thinking about. SEO doesn’t stop with your website. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. You need to be continually adding fresh new content—add case studies and a blog. Make sure that you’re keeping your site updated with your products and services. You need to be looking at your presence across all of your online marketing channels—your social media sites, Yelp, etc. Owning a website is a responsibility. If you want it to work for you, you need to work it.

Is your website delivering ROI? If not, talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and digital media experts. 

Social Media Belongs in Every B2B Marketing Strategy

You don’t have to be a social media junkie to understand that this medium has changed the way we communicate. We’re sharing our lives, our personal challenges and triumphs with our communities. We’re also sharing the minutiae, the silly things that humanize us and make us interesting. The collection of our random posts, these snippets of information accompanied by images help tell our stories; they document our lives. This personal component has become an important part of the new marketing paradigm—there needs to be an emotional connection, and people want to know about the people with whom they’re going to be working.

Forget about “not my audience”

Many of my clients are in B2B environments, and they discount social media as a communication tool for kids. I get a lot of “not my audience.” Their single concession consists of a boring profile on Linkedin. But social media isn’t just for kids anymore; creating a social media presence and owning it is a critical part of building your online presence. It has a tremendous impact on your SEO value. Every time your name and that of your business appears in the online space, it contributes to your SEO value. It’s cumulative. Consistent with Google’s last few algorithm changes, there’s an emphasis on quality content. Posts that are thoughtful, timely, well-written and relevant. Use images—people expect to be entertained.

Social media should be part of every B2B marketing strategy 

Recent research looking at buyers in the IT sector found that 86% use social media when making a purchase decision. These buyers tend to be the young adults who are also using social media for fun.

But the research also showed where the influential decision-makers tend to hang out:

• 83% research on LinkedIn
• 80% check out Twitter
• 80% look at Facebook business pages
• 61% review YouTube videos
• 39% use Google+

Do these numbers surprise you? They shouldn’t 

Twitter just celebrated its tenth birthday. Facebook is 12 and Linkedin is now a rambunctious teenager, at 14. And these are just the Big 4. This doesn’t include Instagram, Snapchat and the gazillion or so other social media apps that are popping up and capturing people’s imaginations every month.

Social media is not going away; it’s an accessible communication tool that’s deeply ingrained in our lives. Informed buyers these days expect to do research before purchasing a product or service, and the vehicle to do that is conveniently located in the palm of their hands—the ever-present cellphone. They’ll look at your website, read your About section and your Linkedin profile. They’ll also go to your social media sites to see what kind of presence you have. They’ll want to see what you’re posting and what people are posting about you.

Just one channel in an overall marketing plan

Social media is just one marketing channel, but it should be part of a larger marketing strategy. Many small business owners and entrepreneurs are overwhelmed by social media—they don’t have the resources to really create a robust presence and build a huge community. That’s okay. The important thing is to have a steady, consistent message that’s informative and fun. Don’t become a slave to social media—but you can't afford to neglect it either.

Need help incorporating social media into your marketing plan? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.