The low entry barrier to Singapore’s catering industry means that there’s cutthroat competition. Whether you’re an established business or a food-catering unicorn, you need to stand out to be successful.

While the quality of your food and customer service matter the most, you cannot ignore the importance of marketing. People should know your existence before they can order, taste and review your foods. So here are some marketing tips.

Build a strong online presence
Now most people read online reviews before buying a product. People looking for a caterer do the same. If your catering business doesn’t have a website, develop one. And just having a website isn’t enough. Your website should rank higher in organic search results. Simply put, when people search the web for a catering service provider, they should find you in the first page of Google. To that end, you may need to do some online marketing and hire an SEO expert. There are many ways to boost your online presence. For instance, you can start a blog and post catering related news and articles on a regular basis.

Leverage the power of networking
As with any business, networking is crucial to marketing your catering business. You need to network with local clubs, wedding planners, corporate event planners, and event venue rentals, among others. To make your networking work, you should meet your prospects in person. Visit their office and offer them a discount if they order from you. If possible, carry samples of your best dishes with you and request them to taste your food. The idea is to build a human connection and win their trust. Remember, people do business with those they trust.

Create a loyalty program
Loyalty programs and incentives are a great tool to entice more clients to do business with you. You can also contact bridal stores and local agents and offer them incentives for referring new customers.

Just writing great blog posts or posting regularly is not enough. Success in blogging depends on several other factors. You need to know what keywords to use, where to insert your keywords and other SEO techniques. If you are concerned about the weak online presence of your blog posts, consider joining an SEO training course. You don’t have to be an SEO expert to run a blog successfully, but knowing the basics would help. In the previous post, we discussed some important steps you need to take for boosting the SEO of your blog. Here are some more tips.

1. Include a keyword in meta description

The meta-description shows up just below your title tag in the search result. It gives a brief overview of the link, making it easier for the searchers to understand what the post is about. Including a keyword in the meta data helps the search bots find your post when someone searched with the same or a related keyword. Google now allows 300 characters in the description. Make sure that you use up the full space. Also, try inserting the keyword in the first sentence of the description.

2. Avoid keyword stuffing

While using the right keywords is important for SEO, you should not force too many keywords into the post as this could harm your reputation to the search engine. The rule of thumb is to use less than two keywords per 400 words. If possible use some related words as well.

3. Optimize your images

Your blog post should also have some images. It is equally important to optimize your images for the search engine. Since search bots cannot recognize images, you should include a description of your image in the alt-text. It is even better if you can include a keyword in the alt text.

You know your blog posts can change the world, but nobody is listening! You’re disappointed – don’t know what went wrong. But hey….did you optimize your posts for the search bots? Perhaps no! Even if you did, maybe you didn’t use the latest SEO techniques.

Don’t fret, because improving SEO for your blog posts is not rocket science. With the right guidance from an SEO consultant, making your blog posts SEO-friendly should not be an uphill task. Here are some tips to optimize your blog posts for search engines.

Make your blog mobile-friendly

Most online searches are conducted from mobile devices. Some people still search from their PCs, but they are being outnumbered by mobile users. So making your website mobile-friendly is an urgent need. If your website is not mobile-friendly, every blog post on your website will have two URLs – one for PC users and another for the mobile users. That means any inbound traffic to your blog post will automatically split into two parts, diluting the value of the post to search engines.

Use long-tail keywords

With a long-tail keyword, it is easier to rank your post higher in the search results. Sure… the number of searches would be fewer, but you’ll get more relevant traffic through a long-tail keyword. But don’t go overboard. Using one or two long-tail keywords would suffice. Make sure that you choose the right keywords for the right post. If you’re not sure what keywords to use, consider hiring SEO services.

Use a keyword in the title tag

If possible, use a keyword in the title tag or headline of the post. This helps boost your post’s SEO. Ideally, you should include your keyword towards the beginning of your title. Google shows only the first 60 characters of your headline. If you have a longer headline, we recommend starting the title tag with the most important keyword.

Let’s face it. Most companies have no clue what works and what doesn’t in the online space. They launch a website because their competitors are doing it. Then they hire an SEO expert to help them raise their search ranking.
But it doesn’t have to be that way for you. If your website is not getting you the desired results, you’re perhaps making some common website mistakes. Knowing where you’re going wrong is the first step to fixing it. For instance, if you are messing up your SEO, you may want to join an SEO training course.

In the previous article, we touched upon three most common website mistakes. Here are three more mistakes to watch out.

1. Lack of clarity

It’s easier said than done, but there’s no better way to win the trust of your visitors than by using clear, easy-to-digest web copies. Trying to be too clever with your copies can do more harm than good. For instance, some web copies do not include a clear call to action. As a result, visitors may get confused about what steps to take after reading the website.

2. Not including a picture of you

It may sound intriguing but the truth is; your visitors are human beings. They always like it when they can see a picture of the person they’re planning to do business with. Believe it or not, your photo speaks volumes about you. Your customers are more likely to trust you when they see a photo of you. It shows they are going to do business with a real human being as opposed to an invisible robot.

3. Not using long-form content

Surprising but true! A recent study found that websites with long-form content are more likely to rank higher in organic search results. Also, people prefer reading long content pieces because most of long copies usually go deep down to analyze a problem and provide solutions to that.

Do you often wonder why your competitor’s website attracts more traffic than yours when there’s seemingly not much difference between the two?

Well, maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye. Only a professional SEO consultant can point out the “invisible” mistakes in your website. But before you can hire professional SEO services, you can at least be aware of the common website mistakes SMBs often make. Here are the three most critical ones.

1. Not having a defined goal

Launching a website just because others are doing it is NOT a smart move. Yes…… businesses today should launch a website, but not until they know why they need one. Ideally, start by asking questions, such as, “Why do I need to lunch a website?” or “What am I trying to achieve with this?” It could be generating more leads, improving your online reputation, or maximizing your sales. Once you define your why, you can now create a content strategy or design plan for your website, with the end goals in mind.

2. Not making it mobile-friendly

Let’s face it! More and more people today are using their mobile phones for Google search. If you don’t optimize your website for Smartphone and other mobile devices, you’ll surely miss out a large part of the audience. Consider using responsive designs so your website can easily fit into the end-user’s device. You should also plan your SEO with the mobile users in mind.

3. Not considering load speed

Now that people are more used to getting things done in just one click, they hate waiting! If your website takes forever to load, guess what…… your potential visitors would dump you forever. The importance of ensuring fast website loading speed cannot be stressed enough. If possible, hire an experienced developer to take care of the load speed. Otherwise, you can consider opting for SSD web hosting, which skips certain steps to help find the requested data faster.