BEST SEARCH ENGINE (SEO) MARKETING PRACTICES

As a small business owner, you’ll need to take on the role of a marketer in order to promote your brand and get your message in front of your target audience. And while you could certainly hire a marketer to assist you with these types of tasks, there are a few marketing best practices you should know and understand — including search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. A poor digital marketing strategy can do more harm than good, especially if you’re not safeguarding your business from cyber threats. These tips from ATX Designer will provide you with the information you need to safely and effectively market your business online, so read on!

SEO

An effective SEO campaign can help boost your website’s search engine rankings, but it’s important to understand the basics of search engine optimization — and how to best implement these strategies. To help you begin, Kim Kosaka of Alexa offers some tips on conducting keyword research, optimizing your website content, linking to other websites, and protecting your website — and website visitors — with an SSL certificate. By adding an SSL certificate to your website, for instance, you’ll improve search engine rankings, protect confidential data, and boost consumer trust.

On the other hand, negative SEO can harm your small business and even lower your search engine rankings. To protect your business from negative SEO activity, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends the following:

Submitting a Copyright Removal request if you suspect your website or blog content has been plagiarized
Monitoring your website with Search Console Tools from Google or Bing
Using a content delivery network (CDN) and web firewall to protect your business website from bot attacks

PPC

In addition to SEO, a good PPC marketing strategy will help to increase traffic to your website through the use of paid online ads. Whenever a website visitor clicks your online ad, you pay a small fee to the advertising network — whether it’s Google, Bing, AdRoll, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. And while pay-per-click marketing can increase web traffic and boost business sales, there are right and wrong ways of launching a PPC campaign. Several PPC best practices to keep in mind when launching your campaign include:

Using effective ad copy.
Creating high-converting landing pages.
Adding negative keywords to your PPC campaigns.

GO THE EXTRA MILE

To protect your consumer data, reputation, and business profits — and learn invaluable skills in areas like digital forensics, network security, cloud and data management, cryptography, and cyber defense — you may choose to go back to school and earn an online degree in information technology (IT). By sharpening your skills with an online IT bachelor’s degree, you’ll obtain the knowledge you need to protect your small business from online security threats as you begin to put your new marketing strategies into practice.

If going back to school isn’t in the cards, there are a few other steps you can take to expand your knowledge of marketing and IT. The SEO Learning Center from MOZ, for instance, offers a variety of free online tools and courses related to search engine optimization, keyword research, content marketing, and link building. To learn about internet security, check out the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) cybersecurity tips for small businesses.

A FINAL WORD

Putting an effective SEO and PPC marketing campaign into action takes a great deal of research, time, and planning, but you don’t have to go at it alone. Whether you work with a digital marketing agency or hire a marketer to assist you, these professionals can help to grow your small business online while also protecting it from security threats and cyber-attacks.

Are you ready to put these marketing best practices into action? Contact the ATX Designer today!

PUBLISHED: October 13, 2020