Once you’ve got Google Ads driving traffic to your party rental website, what’s next?
Your SEO!
It is not the place to start with your online marketing efforts. It won’t get you overnight results.
BUT — Do not run your site for too long without following some simple SEO best practices. It can make it harder to get your site ranked on Google in the future. So, it’s important that you understand what the heck SEO is.
SEO is a long game that reaps rewards slowly. The benefits of SEO are that it’s free, it’s ‘on’ 24/7, and it can bring you high-quality traffic whether you have Google Ads running or not.
In this article, we will cover what SEO is, how it works, how you can use SEO keywords to your advantage from the start, and how to decide when it’s time to hire an expert for your party rental SEO.
What the Heck is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is how your website communicates with search engines, most commonly with Google. Through SEO, you can tell Google what your site is all about and how you can help people. A party rental website set up without SEO is at risk of sending Google all the wrong messages — which can be challenging to fix later on down the road.
SEO is a completely FREE way to market your business. In other words, you can’t pay to rank on Google (outside of the Google Ads section). The only costs you can incur with SEO are your own time or the cost of the expert you hire.
How does Google Ranking Work?
Essentially SEO is a rewards system. And the websites with the highest rewards show up highest on search engine results pages (SERPs).
The more relevant, legitimate, and quickly helpful your website is, the more Google is going to reward you with a higher ranking.
But how does Google know what rank your website deserves? It has to use SEO to get to know your site.
What is Search Engine ‘Indexing’?
The way that Google gets to know your website is through its ‘Googlebot’ web crawler. Web crawling is like a little bot speed reading through your entire site to see what’s on each page and what your website is really about.
As the Googlebot crawls your site, it records what it finds. This is called ‘indexing.’ Once Googlebot has indexed your site, it has a reference that you can think of like the index of a book.
However, Google won’t just trust one web crawl, and you won’t get instant traffic from your SEO. This is a long game to play. Google will want to see — over time — that your subject matter is consistent, your pages are all connected, and that people engage with your site in a real and human way.
In the indexing process, Googlebot will look for relevant keywords to connect you with people who are actively looking for what you have to offer.
What are SEO Keywords?
When customers want to find a party rental business through Google, they type words in the search bar. Those words are all potential keywords.
The name ‘keywords’ can be deceptive since many are actually phrases people use. In the party rental industry, keywords could be phrases like “bounce house rentals” or “inflatable water slide rental.”
The best keywords are the ones that get the most traffic, which means they’re searched more often than other keywords on Google. These are also the keywords that have the most competition for ranking.
A keyword that would get less traffic than “bounce house rentals” might be “llama themed bounce house rentals near me”
Lower traffic keywords tend to be more specific or address a more niche customer need that only a few people are searching for compared to more common keywords. Even though these keywords aren’t as popular, they can still be powerful traffic drivers, especially when you’re just getting started with SEO. You can think of it this way — if you have a Llama themed bounce house, you’re going to want to make sure that anyone searching for one can find you!
Where should I Put My Keywords?
For each page or blog on your site, you’ll use one main keyword you aim to rank for. Across your site, the keywords you aim to rank for should all be clearly related. Since you’re setting up an entire site for party rentals, this shouldn’t be difficult.
Your keywords belong in your site’s titles, page content, and metadata.
Here are some best practices you should implement when writing content for your home and category pages.
Headers
When you set up your website, you’ll notice that you can format text differently. You’ll see options like H1 Header Text, H2 Header Text, Body Text, etc.
These aren’t just different fonts. The different formatting options emphasize parts of your text so that Google can easily see what’s most important. Use them strategically.
Headers on your website should be formatted as H1 header text. In your code, <h1> tags should surround this text. This header text should be the title of your page and include your target keyword. There should only be ONE H1 header per page. For other headings within your page, use H2; for subtitles under those headers, use H3.
Image Alt Text
Google can’t read images, so adding alternate text to your images tells Google what your image is about. This is also helpful for visually impaired users as Google can read to them what the image is about. Although it’s easier said than done, whenever you upload a photo to your website, you should make an effort to put something in the Alt text or image description box.
Links
There are two ways to use linking on your site and to your site for SEO. The first way is by interlinking. Interlinking is linking pages within your site. You might link to your contact page on a category page or one category page from another. Interlinking can make navigating your site more intuitive and shows Google that everything is connected.
The second way to use links to build your SEO is through backlinking. This is when other websites link back to your website. Google loves to see this because it means that other websites (aka people!) are referring to your content and category pages. In a way, this is like social proof that other people find your business interesting and credible. There are various ways to get backlinks. One of our favorites is to start a backlink network with other local businesses or party rental businesses around the world.
Metadata
Metadata is only visible to people searching as ‘preview text’ on your Google search result. It should always include your keyword and tell Google what your page is about in a very concise and powerful way. Ideally, it should be less than 155 characters.What Does it Mean to ‘Optimize’ My Website?
SEO-optimized websites use keywords and other SEO tactics in the most strategic way possible. Following this article’s basic SEO best practices is a great way to lay a foundation for your party rental website that you can build on later — or hire someone else to build on for you.
Should I DIY My SEO or Hire an SEO Expert?
When you are just starting your business, focus on Google ads to get traffic to your website. Once you have that up and running, you can use some of the revenue you’re generating to hire an SEO expert to optimize your site for you.
If you have the time during your off-season, you can learn more and improve your site’s SEO. As I said before, start with the best practices discussed here, and you might be able to rank. Just be aware that you may see your SEO stall, and your site may never rank as high as you’d like it to with DIY SEO.
Never trade a more profitable business activity for working on your own SEO. It is an extremely time-consuming activity, it’s not cheap, and results are hard to measure.
The off-season is also a great time to hire an SEO expert if you’re ready to. I recommend this because even if you’re working with an expert, it can take months to see the results of your SEO work. If you start in your off-season, then by the time Spring rolls around, there’s a much better chance you’ll be ranking and reeling in the bookings through your SEO.
At Event Hawk we help our clients optimize their SEO every day — and we’d love to help you, too.
We can equip you with everything you need to set up a successful site, or provide you with custom tailored services that are done for you. With our support, you can decide how much time and money to put into Ads and SEO.
Book your free strategy session with Event Hawk today and see how we can increase your party rental’s website traffic and bookings as soon as this week!
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