Every type of business, regardless of what they offer, can benefit from a website, a social media presence, and SEO. In this guide, we look specifically at SEO and how it can benefit your holistic health business.
What is SEO?
SEO = Search Engine Optimization.
This is the process of making your website and online content visible to search engines like Google. Search engines like Google and Bing catalog or “index” websites. They then rank them based on different parameters. If you implement SEO techniques, you can boost your ranking and your website may then appear higher when customers search for specific terms like “holistic health products”, for example.
Why is SEO important for your Holistic Health Business?
As mentioned, SEO can directly affect how high you rank for specific search terms. For example, let’s say that a customer wants to buy some holistic health products. They load Google in their web browser, and search for “cheap holistic health tinctures”, for example.
A business that has implemented a strong SEO strategy for that specific term, i.e. “cheap holistic health tinctures”, has a much higher chance of appearing on the first page of that customers search results. Therefore, they have a much higher chance of gaining a sale. This is because consumers are generally lazy, and will not often click past the first page of search results!
This is why SEO is important, and why you should look to create an SEO strategy for your holistic health business. To start, there are certain things you can do, but overtime, it could be beneficial to work with an SEO specialist or web design team who will have great knowledge of these subjects. An SEO specialist could create an effective SEO strategy that would help your health business in the long term.
How can you boost SEO?
There are many ways to boost your SEO – some of which you can do yourself, and others that may require specialist help. Firstly, you can add keywords in image Alt tags. Images like a logo (you can create a free business logo using tools like http://logocreator.io, for example), have the option for an alt tag. This is meant to be used for screen readers, and blind people. It can also be used for important keywords.
You should also give consideration to META tags. This is important data that a search engine will read. The two most important META tags are the title and description. You should create these tags for every webpage on your website. They should also include important keywords you wish to rank for. There are specific parameters and tips you should also observe when writing these tags. For example, the META description should be no longer than 155 characters (with spaces), and contain the keyword at the start of the description..
Next, consider the use of important keywords in your written content. Ideally, main keywords should be included in – the page title, the first paragraph of text on a page, several times in the written content, and in a sub-heading if possible. It is important that you implement these keywords naturally. They must not be forced, and they should also fit in the context of the text. Google and other search engines can penalize you for keywords stuffing, for example.
Conversely, Google positively ranks linking within a blog to other posts within the same website. So linking to similar keywords and topics from other blog posts can positively influence your SEO.
Does the Website Builder Matter?
Finally, your website/blog platform also matters. Depending on where you host, there are different SEO strategies you can implement to optimize your reach and searchability. See this comparison to help choose between WordPress and Squarespace, two of the most popular options.
There are many other SEO tips to implement, but the above is a good starting point. The main point is, is that you understand the importance of SEO for your holistic business. If you have a sound SEO strategy, you can easily boost your exposure, website traffic, and ultimately your sales and profit.
