Powerful SEO Link Building Strategies You Probably Aren’t Using
A Home Builder, Contractor and Interior Designers’s guide for on & off page SEO strategy.
But you may not know much about the differences between on and off page SEO, and why a successful website needs to focus on both.
“On-page SEO consists of factors that a website owner can directly manipulate on their site. Off-page search engine optimization refers to the digital signals outside of one’s own website that marketers can influence indirectly.”
So simply put, you have total control over your on page SEO.
If you know the proper steps to take, you can become an on page SEO master. This type of optimization will greatly boost your traffic, and ultimately, your business.
But on page SEO is only one piece of the puzzle.
Off page SEO is equally as important to your marketing strategy.
But…off page SEO can be trickier and requires a little more strategic thought.
Today we will cover tangible actions you can take to boost both your on and off page SEO. These steps will help your ideal construction and designs clients find you, contact you, and ultimately hire you.
But first, let’s take a look at some of the factors that go into both types of SEO.
If you still need some convincing, we’ve compiled six good reasons contractors and interior designers need a business website:
Components Of On Page SEO
Keywords
A keyword is a word that describes the content on a webpage or blog post best.
Smart marketers will research the words or phrases that their audience is already looking for, and then build their content around popular searches. A great tool to search for keywords and phrases is Uber Suggest.
The proper use of keywords in your content is a critical component of good on page SEO.
Headings
When Google bots crawl your website and try to categorize it properly, they pay extra special notice to the words in your headers over the keywords in your actual content.
That’s why using the right header formatting and making sure you are mindful about the words you use in your headers is an important part of on page SEO.
URL Structure
Your URL is the first thing that your potential clients – and Google – see.
A good URL structure uses relevant keywords, is not too long, and uses hyphens as needed so it’s easily readable.
Internal Linking
Internal links are links that go from one page to another on the same website or domain.
For example, in the opening sentence of this blog post, I linked the text to a different blog post on my site that I believed readers would find helpful and relevant.
Internal links connect your content and give Google a good idea of your overall website structure.
Meta Description
A Meta description tag is a snippet of text that describes a website.
This tag can be displayed by Google when a searched for phrase is in the meta description, making it a key component of good SEO.
This is the meta description that comes up when my business is searched:
Your Meta Description should help categorize the purpose of your website, both for Google and for your audience.
Page Speed
Websites that load slowly have a very high “bounce rate”, meaning your visitors will not stick around to see your content if it’s not displayed almost instantly.
Google knows this, and will rate your page lower if the load time is lagging. That’s why page speed is an often overlooked factor of on page SEO.
Components Of Off Page SEO
The most important factor of off page SEO really boils down to one thing…
Backlinks
To simplify backlinks, think of each one as a “vote” for a website.
To use this post as an example again, below you can see a quote and a backlink to Digital Third Coast.
Digital Third Coast says, (<back link)
“While link quantity is still important, content creators and SEO professionals are realizing that link quality is now more important than link quantity, and as such, creating shareable content is the first step to earning valuable links and improving your off-page SEO.”
When you click on the link above, you will be brought directly to the quoted article on Digital Third Coast’s website.
This is a “backlink,” and it tells Google that Digital Third Coast has an authoritative and credible website. The more websites that link to this businesses content, the more credible and authoritative they will appear.
Your goal as a website owner is to get backlinks to your content in order to help increase your SEO rating.
But remember, as the quote above says – not all backlinks are created equal. The quality of the website doing the backlinking is always going to matter and play a part in your rating.
Best Practices For Backlinks
Backlinks
You may be thinking, how do I control whether or not other websites choose to link to my content?
That’s what makes off page SEO tricky! You can’t force other websites to link to yours…and you wouldn’t want to.
But here’s what you can do:
- Create awesome, valuable content that people want to link to because they find it helpful. This is often in the form of a blog post or a similar piece of editorial.
- Encourage your audience to share your content on social media. These shares will help build more awareness around both your work and your website.
- Focus on building relationships with other experts in your niche.
- Turn mentions into backlinks. If anyone has ever mentioned or discussed your business without using a backlink, you have the opportunity to use this mention for your off page SEO! This great article from Ahrefs can show you how.
- Offer to write a guest blog post on a site similar to yours in exchange for backlinks to your own website. And if writing isn’t your thing, you can still use this strategy with the help of a ghost writer!
Internal Links
The game plan for internal linking is slightly more straightforward:
- Create lots of content that you can link to within your website. The greater the number of links to different webpages, the greater your on page SEO will be!
- Make your links deep. Links within your actual content (rather than just on your homepage) are the best move when it comes to on page SEO.
“In general, you want to avoid links to the top level pages on a site — pages to which the main navigation menu already has links. The best links — and the most natural links in a content marketing strategy — are deep within the structure of a site.”
Why SEO Really Matters
To really hammer home the importance of all of this SEO talk, you may need a reminder of why both on and off page SEO matter so much for your website…and your business!
- Good SEO pulls in quality traffic.
People are actively searching for businesses like yours, but no matter how professional or experienced you are, without an SEO strategy they won’t be able to find you.
You will be passed over for a less experienced builder or designer with a better marketing strategy.
- SEO is, essentially, free!
While you may need to get the help of designers, content creators, or social media marketers to really ramp up your brand, there is no paid advertising involved in SEO.
Now, I want to shoot straight with you. A solid SEO plan takes time to build. But in the end, you won’t pay a dime when people click or contact you. The initial work of SEO is one of the most worthwhile business investments you can make.
- Your competitors are already using an SEO strategy to grow.
In order to keep up with your competition, you need to have a marketing plan that includes SEO.
And no matter your business size, you can even surpass larger design or construction companies if their SEO plan is lacking. What an easy way to stay ahead of the pack!
While the world of SEO can be daunting, I sincerely hope that this article has proven that a solid SEO plan is achievable – and necessary – for every home builder or design business that is interested in real growth.
No matter your website needs, at JLE Web Design, my mission is to help experts in your industry increase the quality of their traffic and customer base through solid marketing plans.
Click here to contact me today. I would love to help your business succeed.
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