What tools do you need to grow your online business? 
We have seen a lot of SEO developments recently; from search engine algorithm improvements and penalties, to the ever-changing responsibility of the SEO marketer and how his role has changed.
This has left a lot of online marketing companies uncertain of what to do and what they should be focusing on, trying to figure out what is important and what really defines good SEO.
Here are a few very useful and important tools that can help to rank your sites well:
Tool #1: Social Media Sharing
This has become an invaluable tool to online marketers.
One of the best ways of achieving success here is to create a list of goals to help you stay on track and assess your progress.
For example, keep an eye on the number of shares that each of your blog posts receives, and set a realistic goal for the amount of shares you would like each post to achieve.
Remember, before you publish any post or article, ask yourself whether your headline is as good and attention grabbing as it can possibly be, and whether it is optimized for sharing on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Tool #2: Clever Website Design
Remember that Google wants to give value to its users. This is why it is so important to design your site with human users in mind.
Do not simply design a page for search engine robots or software, as this will not be good enough to reach the top result pages; rather optimize your site so that humans will enjoy what you offer and find value when reading your pages.
Here are a few things you can do to improve your website design for your visitors:
- Improve your page load speed
- Make use of breadcrumbs
- Limit your ad space
- Reduce over-usage of graphics
Remember that if your website gives human visitors what they want, you will automatically deliver value to search engines and naturally increase your rankings.
Tool #3: An Authority Website
When we talk about an authority website, we are referring to a site that provides exceptional content and has a reputation for being a relevant source of information on a specific topic or industry.
Of course with this comes a sophisticated website with a good domain age as well.
When you build a website, you should keep this in mind, as this is the goal that you should work towards. There are a few key aspects that determine whether you have an authority website:
- Age – The age of your website’s domain.
- Content – The quality of content that the website contains.
- Reputation – This refers to whether the site adheres to Google’s guidelines.
Although you cannot control every aspect of your website, for example its age, you can make sure that you spend time on other important parts.
Make sure that you always have quality content on your site and that you regularly update the site, as this is essential to maintain and improve your rankings. Also consider to use a variety of formats such as text, videos and presentations.
Tool #4: Attract Quality Links
Link building is very important to any marketer’s SEO campaign, as this is a good indication to Google on how popular and successful your site is. Although inbound links are always important, but it is links from high authority sources that really matters. Here are a few ways to attract high authority links:
- Write high quality content that will naturally attracts in-content links
- Provide guest posts to relevant sites that will provide a link back to your site
- Offer to replace dead links of popular blogs, by writing new content they can link to
- Write a community post or report on an event, then inform .gov sites so that they might link to it.
By investing your time in links from high authority sites, you will always benefit from it and it has to form part of your long term marketing goals. This will soon pay off, and your website’s ranking and authority will drastically improve as time passes.
Tool #5: Invest in Long Term Goals
Implement SEO strategies that can provide you with long term results, as opposed to only focusing on short-term strategies.
For example, stop chasing algorithm changes, as they change so often that you will never be completely up to date. It is estimated that Google makes algorithm changes every 17 hours, so you will be very busy if you chase these.
Quality content and continuous adherence to the basic rules will see your rankings steadily increase – and continue to increase – as time passes. Don’t expect changes to improve your rankings in a few days, be patient and stick to what works, you will be glad you did.
About the Author: Lorien Roux is an entrepreneur and copywriter for BusinessProfiles.com. Based in South Africa, she loves to write about anything relating to technology, SEO, business, and marketing.