SEO guide for entrepreneurs

SEO is the secret sauce that can put you miles ahead of your entrepreneur friends and competitors. Entrepreneurship is often a lonely and hard journey, but it’s an important one. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we know what it’s like, the long hours, the sacrifice and the passion. Because of this, we have written this SEO guide for entrepreneurs. And Good news, we made this guide as simple as possible.

You see, doing business or rather starting and growing an enterprise is really difficult. Oftentimes, what makes it difficult is the lack of a steady stream of profitable clients. ADs are really expensive and you will agree with me, they are ineffective a lot of the time. Sometimes it costs 100% of a product pricing to acquire a customer. If you are selling a widget for 50 USD for example, you may have to spend over 50 USD to acquire a customer. You then have to pray they come back otherwise, you are in the red.

Luckily SEO provides a cheaper way of acquiring customers. We can safely guarantee that organic traffic is way cheaper than paid traffic.

What is SEO basically?

It all starts with the search engine. Google is the preferred search engine for most people. So as soon as someone needs something, they first go on Google and search it up. They do this for various reasons.

More often than not, it is simply to learn more about their problem and the available solutions.

An anecdote;

A few weeks ago, I decided paying photographers to take photos of my products for my eCommerce store was too expensive. I was going to do it myself. But the challenge was, that I didn’t know where to begin. What sort of camera would I need? The lighting considerations would I have to make. Don’t even get me started on the software bit.

I was lost. So I did what normal people do. I went on Google and performed a Google Search. I first searched for cameras, but I was overwhelmed with the options. Then I searched for lighting, again I was overwhelmed.

Something then clicked in my mind. I needed to learn more about photography. So I changed my search strategy and searched for “Beginners guide to product photography”. Down the rabbit hole, I went. I then came across a really good bit of content. It was a really simple guide to photography written in such a way a beginner like me would understand. And the best part, this is where you pay attention, on the article, there was an Amazon link to a photography pack for beginners, complete with a camera, lenses and the lighting gear I would need. The link led me to the Amazon Web Store and guess what?

I purchased it.

The power of SEO for Entrepreneurs

The only reason I purchased that Photography pack is that I felt confident in my purchase. I felt confident because I felt that I had gained sufficient knowledge of photography from that article.

Role of the Traditional Sales Person

What is the role of the traditional salesperson?

A sales person’s job (I mean those who actually do their job) is to be a guide. You see, when we go to purchase something, we are often in a state of information deficit.

We don’t know the options that are available. Also, we don’t know the different prices. In some cases, we don’t even know how to operate or use whatever we are purchasing.

The sales person guides us and gives us all that information.

But with the internet, that changed. We live in the era of online shopping now. For eCommerce businesses, you can read our guide here.

SEO is simply being a good salesperson, but online. It’s about providing timely, useful information to our prospects in a bid to build confidence and effect a purchase, ideally from us. If you are helpful, Google will always recommend you to its users.

It is really that simple

SEO for Entrepreneurs is all about being useful to our prospects by leading with value. It also includes technical aspects such as Keyword research, perfomance optimization and on Page SEO.Websites that leverage SEO for Ecommerce and provide the best value to users rank well. As a result they get a torrent of cheap traffic, that can easily be converted to customers. .

So how do you get started in SEO for Ecommerce? We will go over two areas.

1. The technical aspect – this is basically a checklist of the technical items that are prerequisite to ranking well. You will not rank if you fail at these technical considerations
2. Content Aspect – As you know, the backbone of SEO for entrepreneurs especially is valuable content. This section will dive into how to research and discover good content ideas, and how best to surface that information for your visitors.

The Technical Aspect

So what do you need, on the technical side, to rank well on Google or any other search engine?

We will start from the very basics. If you are familiar with a certain item, or you have already optimized it you can skip to the next section.

The Website

You are going to need to lay claim to your corner of the internet. Don’t go too hard on this. You don’t need an Uber complicated website, especially if it’s for marketing and or eCommerce purposes. Pick a platform and stick to it. We recommend two platforms only. Choose from these two alone.

WordPress

40% if the internet is built on WordPress. There is a reason for this. You see, WordPress is free and completely customizable. You have the ability to build your dreams on WordPress.

This paired with another technology called WooCommerce will allow you to sell your goods and services online with ease.

There is a bit of a learning curve, especially with regards to installation etc. But as soon as you set it up, you can forget. You only need to perform the occasional update.

Shopify

Hustle culture and drop shipping have really made this popular. It’s a platform that allows you to set up a website within minutes. Really, you can be up and running, selling within10 minutes.

So which platform should you pick?

I will always recommend WordPress. Although it has a learning curve, you actually own your website and can move it around. With Shopify, you own your data, but the store is not yours. The platform is not yours. Personally, I like having the fate of my business in my own hands.

Hosting and performance

Whatever platform you choose, it needs to be fast. A slow website will work against your SEO efforts. The slower the website the less the chances of online success. If you are on WordPress, we recommend the following hosts

Kinsta

Kinsta is a premium WordPress host. It is slightly more expensive than other hosts but its superior features and world-class support have made it a darling of serious entrepreneurs.

Dreamhost

For those who are unable to afford Kinsta, Dreamhost provides an alternative yet very robust platform for your hosting needs.

The good thing about the hosting platforms mentioned above is that they come inbuilt with all the tools you need for good speed. Tools like cache plugins, etc. You won’t need to install anything else. And we don’t recommend installing anything else unless you know what you are doing.

On-Page SEO

Before we discuss On-Page SEO, there is a bit of jargon we have to discuss. What is a Keyword?

The Keyword

This is basically a word or string of words that define what our web page is about. As Google crawls your website, the keywords are used to give it a clue about what the page or website is about. This is then used to allocate your position on Google’s search results. So in short, they are very important.

We have an entire section on how to research and use the keywords that will give you the best results. We will get to that section in a bit.

Now that we know what a keyword is, we can continue with On-Page SEO

Now that we have our website set up and good hosting, its time to dissect our website even further. Most platforms like Shopify or WordPress have plugins or functionality that lets you add your SEO meta tags. But what are meta tags, Let us discuss the meta tags in detail.

The all-important SEO title

This is the first item on your website, that tells Google’s search bot what your website is about. They are very important because they appear on Google’s search engine result page. If you are on WordPress or Shopify you don’t have to worry about this, however, if you are building a custom website, remember to put it in the <head> section.

As you can see above, the title appears on the search engine results page.

Some good tips are;

• Make sure you keep it under 60 characters.
• Use your main keyword to start the title
• Also, don’t stuff keywords

The SEO Description

This is the description in general terms of your web page. It is a summation for the contents of your web page.

Again, it is crucial to make sure it includes your prime keywords, laid out in an organic manner.

The Alternative Text Tag

As of 2022, when writing this title, search engines cannot read images. That may change, with the pace of innovation that we are seeing. However, for now, Google can’t.

Because of this, we have what we call an Alt Tag. Basically here is where you put a description of an image.

Headlines

These are items(the better term is HTML tags) that are used to identify headings and subheadings. They are the H1 to H6. While not super crucial to rankings as they used to be, they make your content easier to read and thus readers are able to extract value from your website easily.

Image Optimization is required for SEO success

Images make up a large part of websites. However, they take up a lot of space and sometimes can make the page load slowly. As a result, the images you use on your website need to be optimized. There are plenty of tools like Smush that can compress and reduce the size of your images without losing quality.

Optimize your website for featured snippets

This is a short paragraph that is often displayed in conjunction with the first result on the search engine result page. Quite possibly, you can win the top search result simply by optimizing for the featured snippet.

But this is easier said than done, you need to provide the answer to the query in a short paragraph that is formatted a bit different from the rest of your content.

Below is an example of a snippet.

Content Aspect

After you perfect the technical stuff, which to be honest, isn’t that time consuming if you are using a good CMS, the other issue that you need to pay attention to to boost your SEO is the Content Aspect.

Content forms the backbone of SEO for entrepreneurs, as mentioned countless times above. So how do you create valuable content? You need to know the issues and problems facing your prospects. You need to put yourself in their shoes. Having empathy and the ability to think like your customer will prove to be a valuable capability.

In this section, we will discuss;

1. The various content types
2. How to research content ideas
3. And finally, we will summarize the various principles that will help you succeed.

The various content types

There is a myriad of content types. They include;

1. Blogs/articles
2. Videos

These two are the most common and most effective.

Blogs/articles

A blog, as commonly defined is any long-form written content that is made available through a dedicated content management system. It can be the main website or form part of a website.

A blog will boost your SEO rankings significantly because it tends to position your website as a valuable resource and answer bank for your prospect’s questions.

It forms a key aspect of SEO for entrepreneurs especially. It allows entrepreneurs to publish their thoughts, and insights and showcase their expertise.

All this is done with the goal of building thought leadership and establishing the entrepreneur as the top “voice” in the particular business segment. This is an asset because it allows the entrepreneur to generate affordable leads and even convert some to customers.

There are a couple of guidelines on how entrepreneurs can leverage blogs to drive SEO rankings.

Write long content

By long content, I mean really going into depth about your chosen topic. You need to dissect the subject matter and surface in an easily digestible format that your readers will love. From countless studies done, longer-form written content performs really well, to the extent of winning the top spot in Google Search results pages.

An average of 800 to 1500 words will work really well for you.

Know thy audience

Knowing your audience simply allows you to communicate better. You are in a better position to understand their issues and struggles. Things which you can then address by giving them valuable knowledge/content.

As mentioned, this calls for a lot of empathy and patience. (I tend to repeat a lot of important stuff, so it sticks). You need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and really understand where they are coming from.

Have a unique voice

If you copy and paste everyone out there, your competition significantly increases. You need to be unique and have a unique voice. This could be as simple as having a unique and awesome website/blog design or having a perspective that others lack. Maybe your own experiences and history can be your unique selling point.

Be relevant

Relevance is a big factor, in fact, it is the determining factor when it comes to SEO for entrepreneurs. Your blog needs to properly align with your website visitor’s search intent. Give people what they actually came for.

Don’t bait and switch, that is putting on a seductive topic, only to deviate after 300 words to something irrelevant

You need to be thorough for SEO success

In order to stand a chance at ranking number one on Google, you need to be thorough in the coverage of your topic of choice. This means originality and Good research.

Now that you know what it takes to write a good blog post, let’s move on to videos

Videos

Videos are the new IT girl. Although optional in my opinion, they can help you achieve success in the realm of SEO especially. Who would have thought in the year 2022 we would be using video for SEO for entrepreneurs.

There is one thing you need to keep in mind. KISS. Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate it. Most people hear videos and they immediately think Micheal Bay or Speilberg. But the truth is that, as long as your audio is great and your video portion is semi-decent, you are good to go.

A primer on audio

Good audio is what makes or breaks a video. People will forgive a rough-looking video, but if they have problems hearing you or making sense of what you are saying they won’t watch.

So invest in Good sound equipment

The actual video

Most phones are more than competent in taking good videos. All you need is to clean yourself up, get a well sunlit room (sunlit is always the best) and you are done. You don’t need to spend a lot on video equipment. Save that money and reinvest it into growing your amazing business.

How to research and come up with content ideas

This is pretty simple it will shock you. Ready. All you need is Google.

Start of by typing your product name. Or any keyword. Google will automatically give you suggestions to autocomplete your search. These suggestions you get because others previously searched for them. So we know there is a significant number of people interested in knowing about them.

The second is to click on the first item on the first-page result. Assess the competition. Can you provide to users, more value than is being provided by the first item on the first-page result? Is it possible for you to identify areas that the user has not covered or do you have better and simpler explanations?

If you feel you can do better, then God Speed. It’s time to write that article or make that video.

As I said, videos aren’t that complicated.

Principles that will increase your chances of success.

You clicked on this article to learn how SEO for entrepreneurs could be achieved. So it is necessary to give you a few guidelines and principles that you should adhere to. Mind you, these are tried and tested principles that, we stick to ourselves.

Never give up

Being an entrepreneur is hard, SEO is also hard. Everything is hard. It is paramount you stick to it. SEO takes a notoriously long time to see the benefits. Sometimes after a month or so of no traffic, most throw in the towel. And they stop.

A month or two is nothing, SEO takes a year or two to work. You need to just hand it in there and be patient.

Focus on what you are good at

Am sure you are probably thinking, here comes the shameless plug, here is where he sells us something. But listen. You achieve far better results by focusing on what you do best. If content creation for SEO is a hassle, if you don’t feel you can write, or if you don’t have the time to write…you could always get help.

Us, we have been doing SEO writing for years and we have already been over the learning curve. Spend time on your core business, on your customers on research and development. Spend your time figuring out how to delight your customer, because, at the end of the day, happy customers are the reason we are all here.

I hope you will read this article and apply the principles to achieve SEO for entrepreneurs’ success.

You can read another great SEO article here.