As 2016 draws to a close, we are left with an awkward gap after Christmas in which many small businesses close shop and head on holidays.
While some R&R wouldn’t go amiss, this break also presents a fantastic opportunity to capitalise on “mass psychology” by implementing simple SEO strategies to make serious gains in your online rankings for 2017.
To make this achievable for any business owner during the holidays, we’ve got four simple steps anyone can tick off.
Content Creation.
The first and most important step is Content Creation.
Some easy content ideas can be a reflection on key events in 2016 such as highlights, challenges, case studies, product or service updates, client testimonials, updates to terms of service, new team member introductions or upcoming product or service launches for 2017.
To make your content more engaging, try breaking down subject matter expert topics with an interesting perspective such as hacks, tips, tricks or what to avoid (for example, “5 tips to maximise the ROI from your renovation” or “5 mistakes to avoid on your next renovation”.
Expert tip 1 – Lessen the load on yourself by delegating topics across your team. Make sure to inform everyone on why you’re doing this, and provide incentives if necessary. The more high quality content you can produce over this time, the better your results will be. Remember, your competitors are likely still kicking back on their holidays, presenting you with the perfect opportunity to get ahead with creating and publishing content.
Another benefit of getting your whole team on board is that you will get a variety of perspectives and therefore, content. You will also be able to enjoy greater readership as your team is likely to share the content they have produced with their family and friends (read more about the impact of social signals on rankings).
Expert tip 2 – Schedule your content so that something new is posted every day, and consider hyping it up by providing incentives (such as likes receiving a discount or going into the draw for a prize).
Create and Optimise your Social Profile
Secondly, we recommend setting up and fine-tuning your Google Profiles, Local Business Listings, Blogs, LinkedIn, Social Profiles and any other accounts to optimise your sales funnel.
Create links between all of the above so that you can enjoy cross platform engagement and capture more leads. By establishing a good presence on several platforms, you can also develop your brand authority and credibility.
I strongly recommend using content distribution platforms such as Scoop.it to maximize reach and gather an audience. If the content you’re putting out is valuable to readers, you’ll quickly gain followers, audience engagement and social signals.
Optimise pages on your website
This relates to on page SEO (search engine optimisation). We explain more about search engine optimisation (SEO) in Singapore in our previous post, so make sure to check it out if this is new to you.
If you are comfortable working on your own site, start optimising every page by adding new content with the right keyword usage and placement. Before you get started, you must first understand buyer or search behaviour in order to find the right keywords. The trick is to diversify and use both long and short tail keywords and add them to your Meta Tags and Meta Descriptions.
For more advanced tips on on-page optimisation, check out our previous post on schema markup and https.
Some other tips including adding lead capture forms on your pages for CRO, adding customer testimonials throughout your site and social widgets (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc) to turn your static website into Web 2.0.
Remember that static websites are pretty much like the Yellow Pages book – it simply isn’t effective anymore!
The cherry on top – Invite Customers to Review Your Business
Need a little more for your site? Send personalised messages to your valued clients or use Mailchimp (they offer 30 day trials and very easy to work with, even for beginners) to get the word out there that you are after reviews.
An easy way to do this is to link to your Google Business Listings.
However, don’t go for a scatter approach: instead, focus on sending invites to clients you know will have glowing things to say about you. You could also try providing incentives for this.
To Sum it Up
A little bit of commitment every day is the best investment you could make in your business in preparation for 2017. By doing so, you can guarantee you’ll be off to a strong start while your competitors are still nursing their hangovers.
Check out this article posted a few weeks by our team for more effective SEO techniques to implement in 2017.
If all of this tech speak is going over your head, call Digital Squad, a digital marketing agency Singapore. Let us help you with Remarketing, Facebook Marketing Singapore, AdWords Marketing Singapore and SEO Singapore.
We aren’t your typical digital marketing agency. We make sure our clients’ digital strategy is fully looked after. Leveraging the power of all other digital avenues is key. With proven results, talk to us how we can help you with YouTube advertising, Instagram marketing or any other social media marketing Singapore. Additionally, we’re here to show you scalable growth with programmatic advertising Singapore, Bing ads Singapore and marketing automation.
We put our money where our mouths are and will show you real case studies and proof to demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategies.
Recommended Reads:
How Facebook Marketing Moves Customers Through the Sales Funnel
Effective Link Building Strategies for 2018
Increase Your Conversion Rate with Simple Psychology
Helping Small Businesses Grow and Adapt with Marketing Automation