Search engine optimization, or SEO, is critical for marketers worldwide. It is a method that helps your website and other online content get the best possible ranking on Google. This is important because people often and naturally click on the first few results.
The higher your content ranks on search engines, the more visitors you're likely to receive. Much of SEO’s success for brick-and-mortar retailers and service organizations is determined by location-specific phrases and methods. This is why it’s a highly competitive practice to maintain national SEO.
What Exactly Is National SEO?
National SEO is the process of optimizing online content for a larger, more generalized audience. In other words, this method works for non-geographically injured search phrases, such as "what gifts can I get for my mom?"
Basic national SEO involves the same ranking factors as local SEO but for a more nationalized audience. In other words, national SEO is similar to local SEO but with a much broader reach and scope.
Why Is National SEO So Important?
It's critical for online retailers, service companies and more to optimize content for any potential local customer. In today's customer-driven marketplace, where most consumers search on their phones and tablets, it's vital that they find you when they need you.
More consumers are using the internet to search for products and services. The practice of "inbound marketing" has exploded in popularity. This strategy incentivizes businesses that sell items online and service organizations that provide services to invest in their online presence and optimize their websites for search engines or SEO.
With the ability to filter its search results by location, Google allows consumers to find what they're looking for in the area in which they're searching. If your organization sells products or services, you can't afford to miss out on website visitors from all over the country – you need national SEO.
Even if you're located in a small town, you can still benefit from optimizing content for search phrases that apply to your industry. Then even though you live in Ohio, you can still benefit from content optimization if you're a florist and people search for things like "flower delivery Chicago" or "flower shop Los Angeles."
Think of national SEO as the opportunity to tell a vast nationwide audience about your products or services.
How to Do National SEO?
1. Create a National SEO Strategy
Once you've decided that national SEO is right for your organization, the first step is to create a plan of action. To figure out which search phrases and words and keywords you should be optimizing for, think about what people search for and what time of day is best for different search habits.
A good SEO strategy also includes an actionable SEO plan. With a plan in place, you can be sure you're taking the proper steps at the correct times, moving your organization forward without a fight.
2. Produce Rich and Fresh Contents
Another way to ensure that your online content ranks higher is to produce quality, evergreen content. Most search engines prefer this kind of content, which is relevant for an extended time and supports the user's search term without being too specific to your business or service.
The longer your content is online, the more it will be indexed by search engines. The more it's indexed, the more people will see it when they search. This is one of the essential SEO techniques.
Moreover, you need to ensure that your content is relevant, helpful to users and ranked as high as possible for your target market.
3. Optimize Your Contents
After you've written your content, you need to optimize it to make search engines happy. This strategy is called on-page SEO. It involves creating an experience that users will find appealing, specific to the search terms you want to optimize for.
With on-page optimization, you want to make it easy for search engines to crawl your content and understand what your business or service is all about. You want to avoid spam, exclude links and keyword-stuffing.
Also, when optimizing content for national SEO, you might find that it's better to write longer articles than to produce many short, quick reports.
4. Add Internal Links
Another critical element of SEO is the internal link. An internal hyperlink on your site is what tells Google that your content is relevant. This is because Google looks at where your links lead and how many links are on your page.
For example, if your homepage features a link to your contact page, it tells Google that the information on your homepage is relevant to contact you. When you optimize your internal links, you provide valuable information to Google that your content is appropriate.
5. Get Social
Social media is a great way to optimize your content for national SEO. There is no doubt that online content and social media interaction go hand in hand with inbound marketing.
Social media makes it easy to engage with customers, answer questions and create a community that feels invested in your products and services.
The more time you invest in social media, the more people you reach and the more content you'll produce. And with each piece of content, you'll be able to spread the word about your offerings and optimize it for search engines. This is why social media is a significant part of the inbound marketing method.
6. Advertise
Local SEO means that you're advertising to a specific location, while national SEO advertises to a larger, general audience. Both elements should be part of your SEO plan to help your organization grow.
Advertising allows you to speak directly to your customer, and it also makes it possible for you to reach a national audience.
Conclusion
This strategy focuses on telling a larger audience about your products and services.
While you can use local SEO to reach a local audience, you'll want to make sure that you're telling a more extensive community about your business.
As with anything else, the more you invest in your brand, the more people you'll reach and the more sales you'll drive. There's no question that SEO can help your organization grow, but you need a well-thought-out plan to get the best results.
If you are looking for an affordable SEO company to help boost your business, LionRank is here to help you. LionRank is created so that even complete beginners may optimize their website.