Most small businesses do not have the budget to pay a big digital marketing firm their monthly fee for Search Engine Optimization. If this is you, don’t fret – here are three easily actionable tips to make the most of your virtual presence, put more potential customers’ eyes on your site, and convert more viewers to customers and clients.
Tip #1 – Optimize Your Blog Content
What, you don’t have a blog? Well, you’d better start one. Blogging is the easiest way to get fresh content on your site to help you rank better, get more traffic, and convert more viewers to customers or clients.
What should you blog about? Well, that depends upon what product or service you offer and what your potential customers or clients are looking for online. For instance, if you have a pest control business, you might want to partner with a pest control SEO agency to help you create blog articles that are focused on your business niche.
Identify Your Client or Customer
Let’s say you have a dog-walking agency. Who are your potential clients? Dog owners, of course, and also dog owners within your geographic area of service (more on that later).
Using Google AutoSuggest to Find Topics that are Relevant to Your Customer
Of course, you want to blog about dog walking itself, both to attract searchers to your site and to establish your expertise in your field. When I type “dog walking” in the search bar, Google supplies “dog walking near me” and “dog walking services near me.” This tells me that people are looking for professional dog walkers near them. How do I get Google to show them my site?
You have to show Google that your site is relevant to their search intent. Every blog article you write should include terms that satisfy their search intent, such as “professional dog walker in [town or area]” or “dog walking service in [town or area].”
Next, what do dog owners in your service area care about? What questions are they asking Google? You can easily find out by using Google’s AutoSuggest and People Also Ask.
Start by typing in “why does my dog…” Autosuggest gave me the following:
- Why does my dog stare at me
- Why does my dog shake
- Why does my dog eat poop
- Why does my dog follow me everywhere
- Why does my dog lick me so much
- Why does my dog sit on me
- Why does my dog eat grass
There are seven great topics to expand on. If you don’t know anything about these topics, google them! Make your post more comprehensive than the #1 result and in the same format, such as a narrative, a FAQ, a bulleted list, etc.
More specifically, I googled “why does my dog need a walk…” and Autosuggest gave me:
- Why does my dog need to walk every day
- Why does my dog need to walk on the left side
- What happens if I never walk my dog
- How long should I walk my dog
- Benefits of walking your dog daily
- Why walking your dog is important
- How long can a dog go without a walk
There are seven more relevant topics for you, the professional dog walker, to blog about.
Using “People Also Ask” to Find Blog Topics
Here’s what “People Also Ask” contributed:
- Is it cruel not to walk your dog?
- What happens when you don’t take your dog for a walk?
- Is it bad not to walk your dog for one day?
- Should I let my dog stop and sniff on walks?
- Is it OK to let your dog walk in front of you?
- How do I get my dog to stop pulling on walks?
- What does it mean when your dog walks behind you?
This makes a total of 21 topics you can blog about. Write and post one or two a week.
On-Page SEO
When possible and natural, link internally to your service pages and other blog posts using the anchor text you want to rank for. For example, if you want to rank for “how to stop your dog from pulling” then use that text exactly in some other place on your site to link to the blog post on that topic.
Google rewards articles with headers, short sections of 2-3 paragraphs, short paragraphs of no more than three sentences, bulleted lists, numbered lists, and images. Images should have a relevant name, such as “walking three poodles in Anytown.” Favorable word count varies, so look at the #1 result for guidance on that and on the format of the article.
Converting Viewers to Clients
Be sure to start and end your articles with a Call to Action, such as “For more information about dog walking, pet sitting, or to schedule an appointment with one of our dog walkers, call us at (123) 456-7890 or email us. We will get back to you within 24 hours.”
Tip #2 – Optimize Your Service Pages
What does this mean? It means to place, draft, and organize your service pages so that the Google bot can easily crawl them and viewers can easily navigate to them.
Locating Your Service Pages
When people land on your home page, they need to know they are in the right place. Make your business name the title tag of your site and as text in the header, along with your phone number and email address. For most sites, service pages should be accessible by clicking on a drop-down menu just under the header section at the top of your page so that it is immediately viewable when your site loads.
In the case of the professional dog walker, your header may be a photo of you walking several dogs with overlaid text stating the name of your dog-walking service, “Best Dog Walk LLC” which is located at www.bestdogwalk.com. If the viewer clicks on the “Our Services” button immediately below, a drop-down menu should appear listing your various services, such as Dog Walking, Dog Sitting, Cat Sitting, Small Animal Sitting, etc. These pages should be located at www.bestdogwalk.com/dog-walking, www.bestdogwalk.com/dog-sitting, etc.
The Content of Your Service Pages
When the viewer selects the “Dog Walking” option, they should be taken to a new page that describes your walkers’ qualifications, your time in business and how many dogs walked, and perhaps some client reviews.
A click button inviting the viewer to “Schedule a Dog Walk Now” should bring the viewer to their email and autofill your email address, or should take them to your Contact page with fillable fields for the client to put their contact information, number of dogs, type of dogs, age of dogs, and when the walk is wanted.
Tip #3 – Include Location Pages on Your Site to be Listed in the Local Results
If well-written and named appropriately, location pages will prompt Google to list your site among the local results and show the location of your business on the map that appears just below the paid ads on page one. This is a must for any company intending to serve local clients or customers. Most service providers are in this category, and dog walkers are no exception.
What are the towns you and your employees will travel to to walk dogs? Make a separate page for each town and use a title tag that identifies what it is. While each location page will have similar content, they should NOT be identical – Google frowns on that and will rank you less favorably.
Using the dog walker example, the title tag for one of the Location Pages might be www.bestdogwalk.com/dog-walk-Anytown (make sure it does not truncate!) and the page itself may be organized something like this:
Professional Dog Walker in Anytown (H1 or Title)
- Text: Introduction, Call to Action with contact information
Walking Dogs in Anytown for Over 8 Years (H2)
- 2-3 paragraphs about walking dogs in Anytown, what routes are lovely during what time of year, what size dogs you’ve walked in Anytown, etc.
Read What Our Dog Walking Clients from Anytown Have to Say About Us (H2)
- Publish reviews here – you might use H3s to identify each one.
Why Your Dog Needs a Daily Walk FAQ (H2 or use FAQ schema)
- A list of five or more Frequently Asked Questions that lead the reader to conclude that their dog needs more walks – use suggestions from AutoSuggest and People Also Ask
Hire the Premier Dog Walking Service in Anytown (H2)
- List benefits of hiring your firm such as education or training, experience, insurance, etc. Put the last Call to Action here!
Last, if you have questions or simply do not have the time to implement these three tips yourself, hire a digital marketing agency that will do it for you so that you make the most of your online presence. Best of luck!
