Boosting Website Traffic: Equine Industry SEO

Did you know Google performed over 8.5 billion searches daily in 2022?

As an equestrian business owner, how do we get some of those potential customers to our webpage? An effective marketing strategy and targeted equine industry SEO is crucial for businesses. Let’s face it, everyone is online now. Are you more likely to Google something or to call a friend and ask? Whichever one you choose, you are probably going online to find out more information.

Digital marketing is now an essential element for equestrian business owners.

And that is actually great news!

Traditional marketing methods like direct mail and TV advertisements can be very expensive. Digital marketing includes email marketing, social media, and content marketing and is much more accessible on a small marketing budget. In this article, we are going to focus on equine industry SEO (search engine optimization).

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is one tried-and-true method for getting ideal customers to your website without paying for ads. It is a marketing technique using specific keywords and placement to show in the search engine results. SEO has two subcategories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO focuses on keywords, title tags, headers, and URLs. Off-page SEO focuses on getting other high-authority websites to link to your website, boosting your trust with search engines.

For this article, we are going to focus on on-page SEO.

If someone searches “horseback riding lessons,” you want to ensure that keyword is on your website and in the right places to appear in the search results. In short, SEO helps to improve your site ranking, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines.

Increasing Traffic to Your Website

You can create the most beautiful, functional, and informative website in the equestrian industry, but if you don’t have SEO, it’s going to be a struggle to get traffic. The web is a highly competitive place, with other sites constantly vying for new customers. If you want to achieve more brand awareness, traffic, sales, etc., you need a website that performs for you.

Content marketing partnered with SEO can help your website get found on the search engine for keywords and phrases that are relevant to your equine business.

Search engines, like Google, rank websites based on the quality and relevancy of their content. These search engines will crawl (review) websites for valuable, informative content and create an index. The index allows Google to provide users with search results based on specific keywords that match their needs.

Having an SEO strategy for your equine business will gain more visibility in search engine results, making it easier for new customers to locate you and your business. Keyword analysis can give you some great insights on what people are searching for online.

QUALITY CONTENT

Google and other search engines prioritize quality, original content. If you think about it, this makes sense. They want to provide value to their users, and search results with poor-quality articles are not going to improve the user experience.

Optimizing your equine business website for SEO will raise you in the Google search results, meaning you could show on the first page of Google instead of the 10th page.

KEYWORD BEST PRACTICES FOR SEO

So, if it’s all about keywords, why not create tons of pages full of keywords associated with your business?

While I can see the logic, please don’t do that!

This practice is called keyword stuffing and is penalized by search engines. Keyword stuffing will lower your website traffic and ranking on Google really fast.

And, unfortunately, one amazing blog post won’t do it, either. Your website is ranked based on your content’s overall quality and relevancy. This means equine business owners need an SEO expert with an understanding of the horse industry, keywords, search intent, and effective writing to create content for their websites.

How to Rank on Google

The ultimate question – how do you use SEO to rank on Google?

Google and other search engines have very complex algorithms that change frequently. Aside from creating quality content and getting backlinks (more on that later), keywords will be your primary method for ranking your website on the first page of Google.

As we already discussed, keywords are search terms used by users when searching on Google. Here are some actionable tips for increasing potential customers to your webpage:

- Title Tags – include specific keywords at the start of your blog posts and pages.
- Meta Description – this is the one I see missing so often. A meta description is the brief summary users see in the page preview on Google. Write a create description with your targeted keywords so users know exactly what information you will share.
- Image Alt Text – Google can’t read your image and doesn’t know what it is showing. So while images are great for potential customers, Google can’t count them without image alt text. This is your opportunity to describe the image (don’t forget keywords!)
- Keyword Stuffing – We’ve already chatted about the importance of providing valuable content. Repeating specific keywords repeatedly doesn’t provide value and can hurt your ranking.
- H2 and H3 Headlines – You can boost your SEO by using keywords and keyword variations in your H2 and H3 headlines.
- Optimizing your URL – Use a logical URL that tells your audience exactly what the blog post or article is about.

Is your equine business discoverable online?

There is crazy competition for website traffic, regardless of the search engine. I’ve always believed content marketing and search engine optimization needed to be a combination of short- and long-term goals. SEO isn’t a quick way to boost your online presence, it is a long-term online marketing strategy that needs some love and attention to achieve results.

Can you get quick results from SEO? Of, course!

When working with the right equine copywriter, equine business owners can see increases in traffic in a short period of time. However, having a solid marketing strategy will help you reach your target audience for years.

How do I market my horse business?

By now, you know successful search engine optimization is more than dumping keywords into every page of your website. It takes time to create thought-provoking, educational copy that is engaging for people and easily shared.

There are many elements involved in creating the best strategy for your equine business. I always recommend working with someone familiar with the industry and SEO best practices. Every element of your strategy should complement each other and be easily adapted when needed.

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