How to increase website traffic and sales? Getting more customers for your small business is essential to growing your business, but without good search engine optimization (SEO) you run the risk of losing those valuable customers. What can you do as a small business to improve your SEO ranking and rank higher on the first page of Google?
If yoy want to increase your traffic ratings, here are few key tips to take note on.
Make sure your website is user-friendly
Have a clean, easy-to-navigate website. Make sure it’s immediately clear to visitors who you are and what you’re offering.
Use a lot of headings to improve readability, and put your keywords in the headings. Headings stand out for search engines and will help you rank higher.
Site speed is also important for SEO. The last thing you want to do is annoy your visitors with a sluggish site.
Finally, you’ll want to make sure your website is optimized for mobile platforms. Search engines now penalize websites that are not easily displayed on a smartphone.
Equipment and software needed to start an SEO agency
An SEO agency doesn’t require much equipment to get started. If you’re working from home, you will need:
There are also many different professional SEO tools for analysing and measuring client’s websites. Some of them are available for free but others come at a cost, but it’s worth noting that most paid tools usually offer a free trial period. A few options worth investigating include:
- Google Analytics. This analytics service from Google is an essential tool for monitoring and analysing website traffic.
- Google Search Console. This free tool allows you to monitor and optimise how your site appears in Google search results.
- Moz Pro. Moz Pro is a paid SEO toolkit that includes keyword research, site audits and more.
- SEMRush. SEMRush offers a range of SEO and content marketing products, including several tools to help you improve your site’s SEO performance. A choice of monthly pricing plans is available.
- Ahrefs. You can sign up for an Ahrefs package to take advantage of a site audit, competitor analysis, keywords explorer and more.
- Ubersuggest. This keyword tool helps you generate keyword suggestions to boost site traffic.
- KWFinder. This keyword research and analysis tool helps you find long-tail keywords.
Next, you’ll want to set a good example for your clients by having a top-notch website that is professionally designed and optimised for search engines. This will require getting a domain name and web hosting before you start to build your website. Unless you’re a dab hand at coding and cascading style sheets (CSS), you can use a pre-made theme or get a custom website built by an expert website developer.
For marketing and networking, having a customer relations management software such as CRM is an essential tool in growing your business and retaining clients.
Project management software can also come in handy. These apps make it easy to keep track of the status of your projects and manage how you allocate your time and resources. Jira, Trello and Zoho Projects are a few options you might like to consider.
Most agencies charge by billable hours and use some kind of third-party invoicing software such as FreshBooks to keep track of their accounts.
How to structure your SEO marketing agency
Using your business plan to form your business model will help you to choose which structure works best for your marketing agency. There are three kinds of structures to be aware of, including:
- Sole trader — independent business owner, full liability.
- Partnership — one or more owners, shared liabilities and profits.
- Proprietary company — a registered entity made up of 1-50 stockholders, limited liability.
Registering your company and business name is required in Australia for taxation reasons. On top of that you’ll need to register for an Australian business number (ABN).
Do I need any legal documents written up?
You may need the following documents before starting an SEO agency:
- Service level agreement — your contract between the company and your client.
- Professional services contract — states the terms of employment, pay and responsibilities.
- Non-disclosure agreement — protects both you and your client’s intellectual property.
You’ll also need to consider whether you need to create any legal documents for your own website. These may include:
- Privacy policy — outlines what you do with the personal information you collect from customers.
- Cookie policy — this informs users about cookies on your site that collect personal information.
- Click-wrap agreement — an agreement users can click on to accept the terms and conditions of your website.
Many online legal services offer free or cheap documents to help you reduce your legal bill. Forms can be downloaded and customised to fit your business needs.
You can also find affordable lawyers online to help you with your legal requirements. Many online legal services offer free consultations for new clients.
Measure results
Free and low-cost tools such as Moz, SpyFu.com, SEMRush.com and Google Analytics will provide you with more information on the SEO performance of your site and tell you more about your visitors—how they found your site (search engine, referring website, etc.), their geographical location and how long they stayed on each page.
This blog post has more information on analyzing your data to optimize your SEO performance.
Be patient
Monitor results from day one, but don’t expect fast results. It normally takes a few months to move significantly higher in search engine rankings.
Also remember that SEO is constantly changing. What works today might not work in two or three years. Keep working at it and stay up to date on the latest changes that affect rankings.
Aim high
Most of your users won’t make it past the first page of search results. A good position means appearing on the first two pages of search results. Past page three, almost nobody will see your page. So aim high!
Skills needed to start an SEO business
You don’t have to be an SEO genius to start your own search engine optimisation agency, but you do need to know the basics of digital marketing to successfully sell your services to clients. SEO is a fast-changing business, so it’s a good idea to stay on top of emerging trends and best practices.
Many people pick up the fundamentals of SEO from working in the digital marketing business for a few years. Working alongside talented marketers will teach you the tricks, tools and terminology you need to win over new clients.
Before you begin, it’s good practice to devise a concrete business plan. This will help you to identify your business goals and realise your initial and ongoing expenses.
There are 7 steps to creating a winning business plan as follows:
- Executive summary
- Company description
- Competitive research
- Market research
- Sales plan
- Financial analysis (incl. funding avenues and needs)
- Financial projections
Courses and qualifications
There are no required qualifications to start an SEO business, although qualifications in marketing and writing can be helpful. If you want to increase your knowledge of SEO before you start offering services, you can study a number of courses online on platforms including:
- Udemy. Udemy is an online course platform with thousands of courses on a variety of topics. It offers a range of highly rated SEO courses which can be great for beginners.
- Moz Academy. Moz is a business which offers SEO tools and information, and also runs a series of basic SEO courses in its Academy. Its courses cover SEO basics like keyword research, fundamentals, technical SEO, backlinks and much more.
- Yoast Academy. Yoast provides a popular wordpress plugin to help website owners manage and improve their SEO. It also offers both free and paid courses teaching topics like SEO for beginners, structured data, copywriting, technical SEO and international SEO.
- SEMRush Academy. SEMRush is a popular SEO tool which helps users find keyword ideas and monitor their rankings. It also has a number of free courses on relevant topics like starting an SEO agency, rank tracking, on-page SEO and SEO fundamentals.
How much should I charge my customers?
How much you charge your clients depends entirely on the scope and complexity of the project itself. Experience and the size of your agency will also determine your pricing structure. It’s not unusual for agencies to use a combination of payment structures, such as:
- Hourly. Also known as billable hours, this can work well for smaller SEO tasks and ranges from $100 to $150 per hour.
- Fixed. This can be useful for larger projects involving many aspects of SEO. Ranges from $500 to $1000.
- Monthly retainer. Customised to each client’s requirements, often based on a percentage of their marketing budget. Ranges from $500 to $2,000 per month or even beyond.
To determine your pricing structure, do a little market research to see how much your competition charges and what they include.
Conclusion
Having a website for your small business is a great idea. In the busy modern world, having a website for your small business is a no-brainer. A website is a great marketing tool that allows you to market yourself without spending too much on advertisement.