The unspoken truth that many Nigerian business retailers are yet to know is that having a WordPress website may never be enough to achieve the desired growth goals they need to reach.
In this evolving digital world, being confidently known depends on your visibility. It is one of the crucial aspects of building a brand to a successful level.
There is no essence of people searching for your website online, and it’s unavailable. It means your business isn’t indexd on Google.
That is why every Nigerian business owner needs WordPress SEO Optimization. It’s a powerful tool that connects you and your target customers, following the actual requirements.
Because, with these methods, your website appears to rank high on Google, gaining positive traffic from customers that could eventually turn into loyal ones. That is the power of WordPress SEO, and it doesn’t require huge funds to get started.
What is WordPress SEO & Why is it Important?
WordPress SEO refers to optimizing your WordPress website to enhance visibility and achieve a higher ranking on search engines and other online resources used for searching. The SEO works in a way that if someone needs your service, such as event decorating or catering, and searches for it on Google, it will, with the help of WordPress SEO, display your website on the first page without requiring scrolling.
Additionally, and importantly, there are three distinct types of WordPress SEO: On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
1. On-page SEO. It covers everything that happens on our website. How you manage and use your website to represent your brand and control it. The core elements that can make your on-page content stand out are high-quality content, the strategic use of primary keywords, a well-crafted meta description, optimal page speed, and mobile-friendliness.
2. Technical SEO is about optimizing your website to ensure it functions properly and delivers content effectively by making your website faster, having a clear structure, providing smooth navigation and having robust secured website.
3. Off-page SEO refers to the activities you conduct outside your website that attract potential visitors through backlinks. It involves the strategies adopted to increase awareness of your brand/website through tags, mentions, and building an irresistible online reputation to establish credibility, authority, and a high Google search rank.
How to Get More Customers from Google Using WordPress
1. Good Hosting Service: As a business owner, you need reliable and effective hosting that lets anyone worldwide access your website. It is essential for building and maintaining a website.
It provides the necessary infrastructure for a website to be available. Without a hosting service, your website cannot be reached, and no one will have the chance to learn about your products, let alone make a purchase.
It’s like a store that saves all your files; imagine what would happen if it stopped working. Utilize reliable WordPress hosting providers, such as WP Engine or Truehost, to enhance your website’s speed and reliability.
2. Learn keyword Researc:. Regardless of what you sell, understand the basic keywords your customers often search for that align with your product, whether long or short keywords.
After learning this, include them in your website for easy access and visibility with stuffing them know as keyword stuffing.
Let’s assume you are a fashion designer who only designs wedding dresses. Your keywords should be “custom wedding dress” and “most sought-after wedding dress”. Using the customers’ keywords, you can determine what content, products, images, and blogs your customers look forward to. Alternatively, use Ubersuggest, Semrush, Google Trends, Google Search Console, or Ahrefs to discover what your customers are searching for.
3. Explore WordPress SEO Plugin: If you truly want your website to rank high among competitors, plugins like RankMath or Yoast SEO are the best options for On-Page optimization of your website. They work beyond tools that assist you in writing, editing, optimizing, and guiding you through the essential steps of what to add, as well as making your website mobile-friendly and improving website performance. To install any of these plugins.
- Hover over your dashboard.
- Click on plugins
- Choose between Rank Math or Yoast SEO and install only one of them.
- Click it to install and activate.
4. Write Engaging Conten:. Search engine and Google only promotes good content that explains what readers want and meets their needs.
Therefore, well-written articles that are accurate, straightforward, and give you top authority make you sell and stay relevant. In this world of content where people use AI search language to generate answers, if our content is clearly structured, it could be picked by AI and lead to more visibility.
Additionally, when writing content, ensure it serves its purpose. Whether the content focuses on informational, transactional, or call-to-action purposes, ensure it fulfills its intended purpose.
5. Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions. They are the short words that best explain what readers are about to click on. They give hints on explaining what the content covers. A good meta description gives readers the impression to click, and visitors get to see your products and make a purchase. The best way to achieve a good meta description is by installing Yeost SEO, which guides you in crafting a well-written one with good readability, rather than navigating through hurdles.
Tips for a good meta description.
- It should align with the content
- Avoid passive sentences
- Add focus keyword with stuffing
6. Mobile-friendly. As of the recent update, 58–63% Since 58–63% of people browse on their phones, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, I doubt it will load fast enough to keep potential customers engaged. You should enable mobile-friendly use for swift loading and navigation, regardless of phone size. A responsive website allows visitors to view images without zooming, avoids tiny or oversized buttons, and ensures speedy access. Additionally, it gives visitors the sense that you understand them.
7. Building Backlink: Backlinks are one of the effective ways to utilize WordPress SEO, which involves inserting your website’s links on other websites that encourage users to click and direct them to your website. Backlinks work like a recommendation, prompting readers to see you as a trustworthy and notable brand. One of its advantages is that if notable websites recommend your website i.e link to you, it echos credibility and improves your page’s ranking. However, the backlink should be used in moderation to avoid raising any doubts with Google.
Tips to apply
- Have access to blog websites or by submitting good articles and any recent accomplishments or research.
- Submit your business name to VConnect, Finelib, or BusinessList Nigeria. These listings often include the owner’s link.
- Work with Top influencers. Asking big influencers to promote your business works like magic. Therefore, when you ask them to mention your brand, ask them to include your link that will direct potential customers to your site.
How to use Local WordPress SEO as a Nigerian Business Owner.
1. Create and Register Your Google Profile: It refers to setting up your Google profile for optimization by adding vital information that displays your authenticity. These include your registered business name, phone number, website link, opening and closing hours of our business, what your brand represents, and quality pictures of your business. Following this process will enable you to appear in the local search results on Google Maps.
2. Seek Review: After gladly satisfying a customer, ask them to leave a nice review, highlighting the credibility of your brand on Google Reviews. The higher the number of customers who leave good reviews, the more sales you make.
3. Add location to the page title: It includes putting your location and stating what your brand represents. Doing this will allow Google to know your area, and when a customer types in your product type, it will indicate our location.
4. Explore Social Media: Have an accounts on different social media platforms that you can manage and integrate into your WordPress website. Ensure you actively share relevant information, such as customer reviews, local news, and business-related ideas, to engage your audience. Using this method also brings in potential buyers.
5. Track And Improve Your Performance: Once in a while, set aside a specific time to track your ranking, the number of new and existing customers, and how you are ranking on Google. Are you on the first page or the second page? What are the challenges you face, customer expectations, and innovations that will attract more customers?
Avoid These SEO Common Mistakes As a Nigerian WordPress Business Owner.
Some Nigerian business owners outperform their strategies in getting a well-driven result to rank high. They unknowingly make mistakes that can cause them to lose credibility and any SEO efforts they adopt to rank high, potentially losing customers and Google’s trust due to the following errors.
1. Plagiarism: As a business owner, others’ content, product descriptions, and images can be a significant red flag that raises Google’s suspicions about your authenticity. Therefore, whatever action you take on your website is directly your initiative; otherwise, your website might never rank if it is detected for theft.
2. Wrong SEO Plugin: Until this moment, some business owners have yet to realize the importance of Yoast SEO or RankMath as actual SEO plugins that provide step-by-step instructions to optimize your page, including writing strong meta descriptions, conducting primary keyword research, ensuring effective readability, and tracking Google indexing. If you are a beginner looking for simple SEO tools, Yoast Plugin offers straightforward guides. RankMath is designed for advanced users who want to have great control over their On-Page SEO.
3. Poor Keyword structure: As a business owner, if you can’t clearly explain what your brand represents and the advantages of shopping with you, you may lose a good number of customers. Additionally, if you don’t know the primary keyword searches, where and how to place them, it will affect your ranking and visibility.
4. Ignoring Call to Action: Another significant mistake is advertising your business without clearly stating how people can reach out or having no clear call to action, which also leads to poor SEO rankings despite selling an in-demand product. A call to action should include words like “Send us a Dm,” “We are waiting for your orders,” or “Call us now.” If none of these exist on your website, you are missing out on money.
Take Away
It’s clear from all indications that, as a Nigerian business owner, utilizing WordPress SEO has numerous significant benefits that will contribute to your business growth and development; you simply cannot afford to overlook it. Therefore, imagine Google ranking your brand, and then you will never run out of customers with free traffic. That is the power of SEO.
