What is SEO & Why You Should Track It for Your Pet Business

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is how you improve or “optimize” your website. The content on your website and the content you create off of your pet business website for your ideal audience are critical factors in your SEO ranking.

To do SEO well, you need to know your target audience, understand your competition, be able to describe the problems you solve for your ideal target audience member, and know your value, all the while using the terms (keywords) that your audience is likely to use to find your information.

There are two types of SEO: On-page and off-page SEO.

On-Page Search Engine Optimization

On-Page SEO includes anything you do on your page to improve the ability of search engines (and your audience using a search engine) to find you. All the following are included in on-page SEO rankings.

• • Title Tags – This is essentially the title of your page. It could be a blog post, a sales page, or any page on your website. The title should use the H1 tag to signify to the search engines that this is an essential part of this content.

• • Headings & Subheadings – Likewise, headings and subheadings should also use H1, H2, H3, and so forth headers because this shows the search engines what is important. Plus, since it defines how the heading or subheading looks to the user, it helps break up the white space and text for easier reading.

• • URLs – When developing titles for any page or blog post on your site, you want to ensure that they are made up of keywords that your audience will relate to but also that the search engine will recognize. For example, if you create a new post entitled: On Page SEO: Tips & Tricks to Getting It Right. The URL should be something like yoursite.com/onpageseotips but not the entire title. You want your page URLs to look good, have keywords, and be short.

• • Optimized Images – When you create an image for your website, the trick for SEO is to name the image something with the keyword in it. So, if you put a picture of a word cloud for your blog post about SEO, you’d want to name the image SEOkeywordcloud.png or something relevant to your article as it helps the search engines as they combine all the information from your page know that the info relates.

• • Body Text – The rule of thumb is that the keyword you want to rank for should appear within the first 100 words in the body text in the first paragraph.

• • Responsive Design – If you don’t have a website or page that works on any device, you’re missing out on customers. Not only that, all the search engines penalize sites that aren’t responsive.

• • Outbound Links – A site with good outbound links to credible sources for the information you share with your audience shows that you’re more than likely a good site with good information. You don’t want to link out too much, but linking to valuable sources helps your ranking.

• • Internal Linking – A good internal linking policy for your website can increase how much of your site the search engines crawl. Plus, it can help your readers stay on your site longer. This is also a good sign to search engines that your content is relevant and high-quality.

• • Site Speed – Your site needs to load very fast, almost instantly. You know that you don’t wait when a site doesn’t load even if it says “loading, please wait” try to optimize your site so that it loads very fast so that not only will the search engines rank it higher, your readers will enjoy it more.

• • Keyword Synonyms – You must be careful not to overstuff each page with one keyword. So, for example, if you want a post to rank for a word, it should be in the title, headers, body text, and so forth. But, it should encompass no more than two percent density. That’s where keyword synonyms come in handy. Use those within the content too.

• • Social Sharing – Include social sharing icons; that way, people can share anything that they love quickly and easily. Plus, they can find you on social media and follow, friend, and like you. Speaking of social sharing, open comments on your blog posts to attract user-generated content that can also help with your ranking.

• • Long-Form Content – You want to include both short- and long-form content on your website. Basically, this is content that is very in-depth. It may have started with short blog posts in a series but can be turned into very long content that explains an important aspect of your niche to your audience.

Off-Page Search Engine Optimization

Off-Page SEO includes link-building and social media marketing. Even TV ads, Radio Ads, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and so forth can also be considered off-page SEO. Essentially any traffic-generating activities outside of your website or blog are considered off-page SEO. The idea is to show the search engines that your site is authoritative, with good content and information for your audience.

Doing SEO right helps you get more traffic. Sometimes the traffic comes from pulling them into your site with the right keywords that your audience will use search engines to find, and sometimes it means creating more links to your site via guest posting, directory listings, and social media activities.

Why You Should Be Tracking Your SEO Analytics

Doing SEO right helps you get more website traffic. Sometimes it means creating more links to your site via guest posting, directory listings, and social media activities. Other times, the traffic comes from pulling them into your site with the right keywords so that your audience will use search engines to find your pet business.

You’ll want to keep track of your website analytics to see how your current SEO strategy works and devise a plan to increase it.

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