SEO Is a Small Business Necessity
Historically SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was a medium to large business tool but it has become just as critical for small business success as well. There are two different categories in SEO; on-page and off-page. On-page is work you do to improve your individual pages to improve your search engine results ranking. This covers everything from keywords to formatting, URLs, even load speed, blogging, and page design. Off-page covers practices like link building through social media, articles, and even business profiles.
SEO can be complex, but it is crucial you don’t dismiss it. The good news is a lot of SEO work won’t even hurt your budget while being more effective than more traditional marketing plans. Fun fact, inbound leads (gained from SEO) cost 61% less than outbound leads (think cold calling). Here are just a couple pieces you can focus on in your small business SEO efforts. Local SEO; as a small business you have a better relationship with your clientele and local audience than a big conglomerate. Your ability to focus keywords in your content to your local area will help you grab that coveted top spots in search engine results. Social media is a fantastic tool for small businesses. You can drive traffic to your website, blog, whatever you utilize. It’s also something you can do 100% yourself for free. Just remember, you really need to post regularly and interact with / respond to users in order to get everything out of your social media efforts. Link building is another great strategy for small business / local SEO. To be successful with link building you need to show your knowledge of the topic/subject by guest blogging or sending quality content to other quality directories to entice others to share.
We’ll cover more next week on the importance of SEO for small businesses. See you then!
SSL Certificates. What They Do AND Why You Need One
SSL Certificates, what are we even talking about? SSLs is the backbone of Internet security by protecting information as it travels the web. Often website owners balk at purchasing SSLs if their webpage isn’t set up for online shopping/money exchange. That is a mistake. SSL’s provide critical items like privacy, data integrity, and protection for your website and visitors to your page. SSLs digitally bind cryptographic keys to a website’s details. When Marlin installs an SSL on your server, it activates the padlock you see in your address bar and “https”. This creates secure connections between server and browser, protecting everyone.
Why do you need an SSL, especially if you are not running an e-commerce site? Data security between servers is increased. Your Google Ranking automatically increases when you provide your users with SSL protection. Trust is built and enhanced with your customer base when they know you’re doing your part to protect them. Should you have a form that visitors must fill out – whether it’s for an inquiry or something else to gathers information from the user, this type of data collection would prompt for the verification of your SSL. If you do not currently have an SSL on your website, then the user will be see the “unsecured content” message on their screen before they could proceed to the next page.
If a customer can trust that your site is safe and protected, then you will see your conversion rates increase!
Now you’re ready to jump into the SSL game, what next? SSL certificates must be issued from a trusted Certificate Authority. Marlin can help you through this entire process and can provide a list of trusted CA root certificates. Give Marlin a call and our experts will get you and your website ready to go!
Take a look at the different SSL certificates that we offer.
