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How to increase the quality and quantity of your company’s website traffic.
By Carmen Bodziak
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the best—and most overlooked—marketing strategies for tent and event rental professionals. Industry experts love SEO because of its high return on investment (ROI) and ability to consistently and quickly bring in more new paying customers. Now is the time to make the right changes to your website to completely revamp your SEO and marketing strategy.
To generate new business with your company’s website by utilizing SEO, tent and event rental professionals should follow four steps:
- Choose the right keywords.
- Add keywords to the website.
- Check for broken links and
outdated information. - Get links from other websites.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization is simply the practice of creating a website that people can find online. Just because you create a website does not mean potential customers can see it. It is up to you to design your website so that you get the maximum return on your investment.
Ultimately, you want to be listed first when someone types a query such as “tent rentals near me,” or “best wedding tents” into a search engine like Google. You can bring in new leads and beat out your competitors by ranking high on the search engine results page.
Tip #1: Choose the right keywords
A keyword is any word or phrase that someone types into a search engine in order to find information. For example, if someone Googles “outdoor event tents,” that is considered a keyword. The goal of SEO is to get your company’s website pages to rank for the keywords that your target clients Google the most.
You shouldn’t choose your keywords simply based on your best guess. Instead, you should do keyword research with free tools like Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner so that you are familiar with what your target audience is searching.
Tell Google what you want to rank for by including these keywords on your website. Be sure to answer this basic information on your website’s homepage:
- What city/region do you serve?
- What type of business are you?
- What products/services do you provide?
- What kinds of events do you do?
The answers to these questions will likely fill many of your keyword needs.
Tip #2: Add keywords to your website
You will also want to include the keywords that you’ve chosen in lots of different areas. These include titles, headers and URLs.
Titles: The title that appears on the web page and the title that appears in the tab at the top of your browser should both contain the keyword you’re trying to rank for on that page. For instance, if you’re working on the SEO of your homepage, your page title (also called an h1 title) may be something like “XYZ Tents & Events: Bringing Outdoor Events to Life in the D.C. Area.” The tab title (also called the title tag) may be something like “XYZ Tents & Events | Tent & Party Rentals | Serving D.C.” Words such as “party rentals” and “outdoor events” are the powerful keyword descriptors in
this example.
Headers: Headers break up a web page and act as a “table of contents” for readers and for Google. Add headers on pages that have lots of information. For example, if you have a page where you list your tent rental inventory, break up each section with a descriptive header.
URLs: Be sure to add your target keyword to the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of each page. For instance, your pricing page could be called www.mytentwebsite.com/tent-rental-prices. Or, the web page with your inventory collection may be called www.mytentwebsite.com/tent-inventory. It is best to be more specific when choosing your keywords for your URL, but be sure to keep them short.
Tip #3: Fix broken links and outdated information
If you have a link on your website that doesn’t lead anywhere (or takes you to a 404 error page), this can hurt your SEO score. Likewise, old information, such as the previous name of your company or a discontinued piece of inventory, can spell trouble. Go through your site, click on all links and revise any outdated content to make sure your site is in top shape.
Tip #4: Get links from other websites
A backlink is a link from one website to another. It occurs when another website links to your website from one of their pages. Backlinks from credible sites boost your SEO score. The best way to get backlinks is to partner with other vendors, be featured in a published article, or have a listing on a credible marketplace or directory.
Dominate the competition
As more people take to the internet before making a purchase, it is imperative that your tent and event rental company stands out from the crowd. By following these four SEO tips you are sure to increase the visibility of your website, grow your audience and dominate
the competition.
Carmen Bodziak is the marketing associate for Goodshuffle Pro, a party and event rental software company dedicated to empowering those in the events and decor industry. She also oversees the Goodshuffle Blog.