Webmasters spend well over $100 billion a year on content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to improve their organic search engine results. However, before you spend lots of money hiring a digital marketing consultant or investing in search engine marketing (SEM), you should take advantage of these free SEO tactics that can help your website rank higher on Google. 

1. Review Google’s SEO Best Practices

The first thing you should do (before spending any money on search engine optimization) is to make sure that your site is compliant with Google’s SEO best practices. Google publishes these guidelines to help webmasters create SEO-friendly sites. Your site should not have any on-page errors and it should contain lots of quality content. Many sites have obvious errors that are easy to spot, such as poor navigation, weak content, and broken links. These things are all fixable. Read through the webmaster guidelines, then analyze your site for potential problems. There are also plenty of free online resources that can help you fix common problems.

2. Sign Up for a Free Google Analytics Account

You need to take advantage of a powerful (free) tool available to all site owners – Google Analytics. All you have to do is create a free Gmail account to use this website tool. Google Analytics will offer you valuable web data–key statistics that will allow you to improve your site’s rankings. For example, you will be able to analyze your web traffic – number of visits, average page views, average length of visits, visitor location information and bounce rate. Another valuable feature is being able to see how visitors find your site, such as keywords used in web searches. Keywords are an important consideration to think about when developing good content. Every webmaster should have a Google Analytics account because this information will let you make needed changes to boost your organic search rankings.

3. Create High-Quality Content

Developing good content is essential for any organic SEO strategy. However, Google also likes fresh content that gets regularly updated so user engagement grows. Adding a blog to your site is an easy way to create fresh content with regular posts. The key is to craft posts that offer value-added information to your target audience. For example, if your site is about travel, you might write occasional posts about seasonal vacation ideas. That way your content stays fresh, and your audience has a reason to return to your blog and hopefully visit your site. A blog is also a good way to gain authority with readers on a subject. Sites considered more authoritative get ranked higher on Google.

We offer high quality, custom made, and SEO ready content writing which can be pre-ordered on a monthly basis here. If you choose to go this route, it’s important to remember: you know your business best! It will always be important to provide your content writer with topics and details that can be custom crafted to fit your brand.

4. Develop a Good Social Media Strategy

Social media doesn’t directly impact your organic search results; however, it can complement your rankings. The more audience engagement you have through social media, the more likely that those followers will visit your site. The goals are to create more brand awareness online and increase your customer base. Also, many consumers are turning to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and youtube to learn about brands – instead of traditional search engine queries. Therefore, much of your target audience is likely to find your brand through those social media sites. That means developing engaging content with your followers is critical if you want to turn them into customers. In short, your social media presence can work to complement your site by attracting more visitors, boosting your brand’s popularity and ultimately increasing its Google ranking.

Take the time to read Google’s webmaster guidelines to make sure your site is free of errors. Take advantage of Google Analytics, so you can analyze your web traffic. Finally, use a blog and develop a social media strategy to promote your site.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help!

SEO is an ongoing process, requiring weekly, sometimes daily attention in order to be effective. Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms, industries and competitors change, content is constantly being added that requires optimization, and improvements can always be made. We offer affordable high quality content writing, SEO audits, on site and local SEO services. Customize your own monthly maintenance and SEO package today and start jumping up the rankings today.