Improve Your SEO in 3 Steps

Business Tips and ToolsVisibilityWebsite

Feb 6

Every online business should be optimizing their SEO to rank higher on Google and get their business and content in front of their ideal clients. Learn 3 ways to improve yours today.Learn more at brandmerry.com/blog-1/improve-your-seo-in-3-steps#fem…

When I started implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it was by accident. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I was kind of DIYing it every step of the way.

You know the feeling of just piecing together information as you find it? It definitely took longer than I wanted it too, but I slowly started to see results.

I remember being in New York City in 2018 and my cousin messaged me and said, “You know, you're on page one of Google, right?” and I knew at that moment it was working.

It was crazy that with some work on the backend, I was ranking on page one of my industry.

Whatever I was doing, remember at the time it was totally plug in play strategies, was paying off. I knew I needed to fine-tune my strategy to start seeing an increase in leads and sales.

Why is SEO important for online business owners?

I don't know if any of you were like me where you spent all of this love and time and energy creating your website just to find out that people wouldn't actually stumble upon it.

In my case, five people were finding my website every single month. Can you relate?

This is why SEO is so important for every type of business. We have these awesome websites, but no one is landing on them. And with 3.5 billion Google searches a day, it seems silly that so many entrepreneurs are missing out on free traffic, quality leads and sales.

In my own story, when I began to get more strategic with my SEO (some of the strategies I’m sharing with you below) we started to see not only an increase in traffic every month, but also an increase in conversions to my higher-level programs.

New clients that were investing between $5,000 - $10,000 were coming from Google. This was happening because women were specifically looking for a branding coach or business coach (i.e. ready to invest) and finding my website on page one (often in spot one) and booking a call...some booking directly on the website!

And that trend has just continued and continued to where every single day I'm getting messages from people who say, I found you on Google.

The reason for that is because I didn't try to go viral for my blog. I put my focus and emphasis on ranking for my industry.

Oftentimes we think about SEO as it pertains to blogging, but we forget that we can also optimize our site for our industry to bring in quality leads ready to invest.

We want to optimize our blog posts, our title, our bullets, our headers, our images, all of those things play a role.

3 Phases to Improve Your SEO Ranking

Phase 1: Site-Wide SEO Optimization

This is the back-end SEO for your website. It includes not only your site title and description, but also making sure you’ve optimized the main pages of your website as well.

Every website platform has these SEO capabilities, and a simple Google search will help you locate yours. I know Wordpress gets a great reputation when it comes to SEO, but I personally love Squarespace. Squarespace is what we host my website on and love it; implementing the SEO on the back-end is super simple.

On your page titles you want to use the keywords within your industry and what people are searching for. SEO is not about being cute, it’s about being strategic.

Many businesses use their name or their business name as their site title and that’s just not enough. Unless, people are searching for you specifically that’s not bringing in new leads. You want to add those keywords, like your title there as well.

For instance, my Site Title is ‘Personal Branding Consultant | Branding Coach | Michelle Knight’

After your site-wide SEO is implemented you want to optimize the main pages of your website. The first page you want to focus on is your home page.

>> Inside Brandmerry Academy, not only do we teach you the step-by-step for implementing proper SEO, we also show you how to increase conversions on your homepage with captivating copy, lead magnets and more. Learn more here >>

For each of your pages (Home Page, About Me Page, Work With Me Page and Blog) we want to also optimize the title and description.

You can spend one weekend optimizing your site and then not have to worry about it again for 6 months to a year. That’s one of the reasons I love starting here with Phase 1.

Phase 2: Blogging and Quality Content

Blogging and the content on your website is what tells Google that what you claim about yourself in your site description is actually true.

If I’m claiming I’m a Branding Coach and there's nothing on my website about branding or teaching people how to brand themselves, Google's going to be like, “Okay, that's cute, but you know, we don’t really trust you!”

Creating consistent content, via blogging, will allow your content to rank as well as help you communicate to Google you are legit. It’s important to carry over the SEO optimization to every blog you create. This includes your blog title, description, headers, content and alt text.

So many people struggle with consistency, and they avoid blogging because Social Media seems easier. The truth is when you’re strategic with your content you can spend the same amount of time writing a blog and repurposing it. Learn more about repurposing here.

And your content will last longer.

Phase 3: Backlinks and Brand Exposure
Backlinks are links back to your website! These are another way to show your credibility to Google. The more backlinks, the higher your Domain Authority.

Now, some people will trade backlinks and that is a NO!
People will also charge for backlinks and that is a NO!

What I encourage you to do and my favorite strategy is to build these backlinks through brand exposure.

This includes being a guest on a podcast, writing a guest post, guest blogging, speaking at conferences, etc...When these platforms feature you they will link back to your website.

So, you’re getting an awesome backlink, and you’re also getting brand exposure in front of a new audience for free. I’m all about that strategic life!

3 Ways to Improve Your SEO This Week

1. Research your main keywords
You need to understand what you want to rank for before you start optimizing your site.

Conduct research on the product or service you provide so you understand the industry as a whole and what people are searching for. I like to use tools like Keywords Everywhere and Ubersuggest to do a thorough keyword search.

You can also do some industry research through Google. Look for other brands in your industry and see what keywords they are using in their site title and site description. Pair that, with Ubersuggest to see how people are actually doing and you’ll have a great keyword bank to get started.

2. Optimize the Backend of Your Website for SEO
This is what we talked about in Phase One, but now it’s time to do it! After you have your keywords chosen you want to go into the backend of your website and update your Site Title and Site Description.

This should take you no more than 30 minutes and will make a big impact.

3. Optimize Your Homepage for SEO
You’ll repeat the same thing you did in Step 2, and update your Page Title and Page Description for your home page. Also, do a double check of the headers on your page, making sure they are efficient and include your keywords.

BONUS: Go through your images on the home page and add in Alt Text. Make sure the file name for the image includes your keywords and the caption includes a thorough description as well.

Start with these 3 steps and start improving your SEO immediately.

When I started ranking on page one, I was only focused on these 3 steps and then I started integrating more and more blogging, content and backlinks.

If you’re looking for more support with your SEO strategy, we’re guiding you through the entire process inside The Brandmerry Academy.

Brandmerry Academy is a year-long membership community that gives you monthly marketing mini-courses, group coaching and advanced strategies to increase your leads and profits without spending all your time or relying on social media.

Learn more about Brandmerry Academy at brandmerryacademy.com

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. If you want to learn more about my repurposing strategy, check out my 3 tips here.

P.S.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.