6 Things your Impact-Driven Business Should Know About SEO in 2022
This month’s guest blog is written by Rebekah Mays of Thrive Copywriting. Rebekah and I connected during the summer after meeting in an online networking group. We are both 1% For The Planet Business Members and we talked extensively about the importance of including SEO research and implementation in every website that we launch for our clients. Including this as part of our work has allowed our clients to increase their visibility over time, rather than having to constantly be present on social media or investing in paid ads.
Enjoy!
Why Should Businesses Prioritize SEO?
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving the quality and quantity of the traffic on your website. This can contribute to every aspect of your marketing pipeline — from the awareness stage, to lead and revenue generation, to retention.
SEO has an impressive ROI — an average of about 275% for e-commerce sites. That said, an extensive SEO strategy is probably not the first thing you should invest in if you’re just getting started in your business. It takes time to build the authority of your website, and in the early stages of a business it makes sense to focus on quicker wins.
On the other hand, if you’re a more established brand and are already investing in content marketing, smart SEO will enhance and compliment what you’re doing. I also think that for impact brands, high-quality content marketing that includes a thoughtful SEO strategy fits in perfectly with a mission-driven approach.
Great SEO content feels generous to the reader … and it is! You’re helping them find helpful and inspiring resources for their needs. So, SEO and your whole content marketing strategy can be another way for your brand to serve your audience.
If you're not familiar with SEO, how does it work?
There are two sides to SEO — the technical side, and the creative side.
The technical side is about making sure your site is easily accessible by search engines. If you’ve heard people talk about “indexing,” “schema,” and “clean code,” these are aspects of technical SEO.
Then there’s the creative side of SEO. (This is my specialty!)
The creative side of SEO is about making sure the content is as well written and helpful for human readers as possible. Creative SEO also makes sure that metadata (aka SEO stuff) like title tags and meta descriptions are readable and compelling.
Keywords also play a huge role in all of this. While I’ve seen some technical SEOs manage keyword strategy, in my view, keyword strategy fits best into the creative side.
That’s because you want to target keywords that are promising from a data perspective, but also make sense from a brand and audience perspective.
How long does it take for a business to start seeing results from SEO?
It obviously depends on your specific business, but the general view among SEO experts use is that it takes at least four months to see results.
So yeah – it takes a while.
The good news is once you start getting some traction, even minor updates can make a big impact.
So even though you might not want to invest heavily in SEO in the early stages of your business, thinking about SEO from the beginning can pay off in the long term.
What are three relatively fast and easy ways to build up SEO on your website?
So as we’ve seen, it’s not really a fast or easy process. This is especially true if you have a brand-new site.
But let’s talk about a few things you can do to get on the right track:
Setting up Google Search Console
Updating your title tags to include your brand name
Working on your content strategy
Here’s a bit more info about each of these steps:
First, set up Google Search Console on your site. Submit your sitemap to the console (you can get this from a plugin like Yoast) and start learning which pages and keywords are bringing in traffic. All this will make sure Google can index your content and will help you know where you stand.
Second, you want to make sure your website is ranking well for your brand name and any product names, so that potential customers can find you.
You can use Shopify or a plugin like Yoast to make sure you have solid titles for all your pages. The title tag should include the brand name and any other critical keywords like product names.
If you’re ready to start thinking long term, it’s time to work on your content strategy.
Brainstorm the topics that your business is able to talk about with authority. Spend some time clarifying who your audience is and what they need.
Then, commit to producing the best possible content your team can create for your audience.
Over time, your audience will be excited to share this content, and more websites will link to your content. All this will build your domain authority.
For a business who has outsourced the design and development of their website, what are some of the questions regarding SEO that they should be asking the studio or agency that they want to hire?
I think the most important thing is to align with your website partner on what success looks like. Make sure your priorities are clear, and ask them to help you understand what to expect in terms of site performance, including SEO.
If SEO is an important part of the strategy, make sure the agency’s overall approach follows SEO best practices – not manipulative tactics. Ask them to explain their approach, and don’t be afraid to keep digging if something sounds fishy.
Also be wary of cheap agencies or freelancers that produce high volumes of low-quality content. This won’t be very useful to your business or your audience, and will hurt your site’s reputation in the long term.
If someone is looking to outsource SEO keyword research and implementation, where can they start?
Think about the resources of your current team. What existing skillsets do you have access to? What kind of budget are you working with?
Also consider the kind of relationship you’re interested in having. Do you want an agency to take care of everything for you? A freelance partner who can integrate into your current team?
There are a number of great agencies out there, and a few of them work in the sustainable and impact-driven space, such as Two Octobers. If you’re interested in a freelance SEO content partner, you might check out my services – my business is Thrive Copywriting, and I’m a 1% for the Planet member.
No matter who you talk to, remember not to get too lost in the numbers and analytics.
At the end of the day, make sure you’re providing value to your audience through your content — the same way you provide value through your products and services — and you’ll be well on your way.
About The Author
"Rebekah Mays helps sustainable and impact brands grow leads and sales through SEO content strategy and writing. Originally from Austin, Texas, she’s currently based in the Netherlands, where she lives with her very tall Dutch husband. Find out how you can expand your business’s impact and revenue on her website, thrivecopywriting.com."