We've assembled five easy tips that businesses can use to increase search rankings with speed. We aren't claiming that you'll appear at the top of the search results in a couple days, but we do promise that using these tips will help a company climb search rankings on all top search engines over time. Determination and patience are essential to consider search engine optimization, and while it will not happen overnight, having these best practices top of mind will help your content ranking.

Tip 1: Keyword planning

It all starts with keyword planning

Businesses with great content on their websites have a tendency to appear at the top of the search results, and great content has a focus on keywords. Before a website is made, your business must first identify what word or words you want to rank for. Keyword planning is not easy, especially for businesses that don't understand how to plan. Your business can not simply choose a word, type it a lot of times and cross your fingers to appear at the top of Google search rankings. Search engines are not duped by this. Keyword density is important, but it's not the only thing that the search algorithms take into consideration when ranking pages in search results, especially with new progress with Google's RankBrain. There are various factors that affect local search, and it's important to dominate the ones you have control of to move into the coveted Snack Pack.

Make target keywords niche, targeted and relevant

When keyword planning, make sure to use niche words, and target keywords that are relevant enough to get your business appearing in front of the right consumers online. If your local business wants to appear to the right local audience, you must be sure to be specific to your community. A local windshield repair business is going to have a tough time appearing for the keyword "windshield." It's not impossible, but it's hard for local companies to appear in the top few results for broad focused keywords. There is a far better likelihood to appear at the top of the search results if the keywords are narrowed down.

Keyword planning example

For instance, a windshield company in Buffalo, New York would like to appear in front of local customers that may have a crack or chip in their window. They 'd be much more successful aiming to rank for "rock chip repair in Buffalo" instead of the word "windshield.".

Tip 2: Strengthen meta descriptions.

Meta descriptions should contain your keywords

A meta description is a small description of what your webpage contains, it's basically a summary of your company's page in ~ 160 characters. These too must have an emphasis on keywords, and for smaller companies such as local windshield repair companies, it is essential to have the right keywords in the meta description.

Meta description example

To keep this example consistent, "rock chip repair in Buffalo" was set as the Google search terms to see which companies appear in the search results. It's always a good idea to check out the company that appears first, see how they are doing it, and try to better their meta description.

In this scenario, this local windshield repair company that clearly knows what they are doing! As you look above, you can see that the meta description contains most of the words that we searched for. This is an excellent way to target the specific search query of "rock chip repair in Buffalo" and to get stressed motorists with damaged windshields through a business's front door.

Help direct consumers from page to page

Proper meta descriptions not only help in search result rankings, but they also give your potential customers a summary of precisely what they might be looking for. Customers want it easy, they do not want to spend a lot of time browsing for repair shops-- they want to find answers easily and the solutions quickly.

Tip 3: Be original

Search engine bots search for original content

It's hard for your business to be unique from the fifty other local businesses that compete in your company's industry. Nevertheless, the content on your company's website should try to be original and somewhat different from the rest in order to stand out in the search rankings. The reason being that Google and other search engines look for original content when their bots are crawling websites. This means every site in a specific industry that has similar webpage content will likely blend in, and the bots will not declare those pages as original or unique. Don't expect a local business page to show high on the search rankings if it sounds just like every other local business page!

Tip 4: Stay active everywhere online

The more online activity, the better

Your company needs to remain active online if you want to increase search rankings, make a name for yourself on places besides your business website. Your company can improve your local search by using data aggregators, or you can manually create listings on lots of directory websites.

Online mentions boost search engine impact

One thing a lot of smaller businesses fail to understand is that business pages on trusted sites are so important! Social platforms like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn are an easy way for your company to index your name across multiple sources on the web. Also, review websites are hugely important! The more your company is mentioned online, the greater the impact you will have on search rankings.

Tip 5: Blog

Blogs help keep web content fresh

Blogs are not just fun to write, but also a way to continuously create new website content. Google's algorithm especially calls for constant web content and publishing if your business wants to appear high on the search rankings. Google is pushing web developers and content writers to keep websites from getting insignificant or outdated, making content marketing a good company approach.

Blog with a plan in mind

Your company should develop a blog plan, regardless of the industry. If that same windshield repair company in Buffalo New York wanted to blog, maybe they 'd discuss the "Top 10 windshield crack horror stories" or "How a rock chip ruined this guy's day." These kinds of articles are relevant to their industry, and are filled with keywords about their company. Tools such as WordPress, Medium and Ghost are all very useful in order to easily start with blog publishing.

A blog presents a big opportunity

It could be a funny blog, or serious industry stories, as long as the content that is being produced has an emphasis on their particular business industry. That's just one example, but there are tons of opportunities for companies in any particular industry. Don't believe us that blogging is important? Here's 58 reasons why companies should run a blog.

Conclusion: Content is key

Whether it's keyword planning for the content you write, writing great meta descriptions, writing unique content or blogging, it all involves the production of content. That's because content is key. Perform these strategies and track your rankings. There are a variety of SEO tools, both free and paid that your company can use to do so. While your rankings will not shoot up overnight, your business has a huge opportunity to increase your search engine rankings and outrank your competitors to get more business through your doors.

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