Just like any other industry, the firearms sector needs as much online exposure as possible, in order to increase visibility, and attract users.

Unlike most other companies, though, firearms businesses do not have the luxury of using ads, and promoting their products on social media to the extent that most other industries are able to.

So, logically, search engine optimization remains the main gun marketing method of spotlighting their products and services.

SEO is a very good long term strategy to increase your organic reach, and raise your brand awareness, but it is not an activity that will typically bring immediate results.

On the contrary, it requires constant effort and tweaking, all hopefully leading to higher traffic, boosted website authority and more clients.

Today, we are going to review some of the best SEO practices that your firearms business needs to follow to succeed in 2024.

6 Best SEO Practices in the Firearms Industry [2024]

Conduct Extensive Keyword Research
Invest Time in Links
Create Valuable Content
Optimize Website Page Loading Speed
Improve User Experience
Keep Monitoring Your Performance

1. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research

We’re starting off our list of best practices for SEO with one of the main pillars of SEO – keyword research. Make no mistake about it, guns SEO requires quite extensive keyword research, especially if you want to find the perfect key phrases to target.

Keep in mind that this process can be a lot more challenging and time-consuming than you think. This is because the firearms niche doesn’t have as many high volume keywords, at least compared to other industries. For example, the term “self defense guns for women” only has a search volume of 90, which is not that much.

Ultimately, you would definitely need to spend a sufficient amount of time to find the most appropriate keywords for your home page, landing pages, and articles. Additionally, don’t forget to analyze the search intent behind the queries, so that you are giving users the information that they are looking for.

2. Invest Time in Links

Links are the backbone of SEO. Links are divided into two types: internal and external. The first are crucial to your website navigation and the connectivity between your pages.

The latter redirect the reader to an external website, advisably a reputable one. While internal links are always the same, external links can come in different types such as:

Editorial. These links are 100% organic and can be obtained by publishing great content on your website. Such high-quality content can also continue to generate links to your website for many years after, so it is always important to keep that in mind when creating content.
Guest blogging. Here you can write and send your own articles to established websites. In return, you’ll receive a link back to your own website.
Business profiles. Placing a link to your website on various business listings, social media platforms, industry directories, and review sites. Such links can serve as proof to search engines that your website is not brand new, and has been around for a while.
Media. This is where media outlets link to your website. This is usually due to there being something newsworthy about your business; you may have created a buzz around your product/service or something else entirely. Such links are pretty valuable, because they typically come from a high authority, reputable website.
Sponsored. Quite straightforward, this is when you pay for links. These links can improve your SEO, but search engines require them to be specifically marked as sponsored/paid.

3. Create Valuable Content

There is a very popular saying in the world of digital marketing – content is king. It might be a bit of a cliché, but it is indeed among the SEO best practices for both blogs and websites in general.

You see, if the content you present to your readers is dull, boring, and uninspiring, not even the best search engine optimization can save you. Instead, your content should serve a few major purposes:

To inform readers and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.
To promote the products/services that your business offers.
To give your business more credibility and reliability, making it more attractive to potential buyers.

But how do you create interesting and valuable content, you ask? Unfortunately, there is no one answer that will work for everyone. Overall, you need to be creative and knowledgeable about your industry, which in our case is – firearms.

Add your own expertise, personal experience and point of view, combine it with some cool infographics, or even start a podcast or a YouTube channel to get your site additional traffic.

4. Optimize Website Page Loading Speed

Despite our previous point, even the best content in the world will not save you if your web pages load too slow. In 2023, the average page load time on desktop was 2.5 seconds and 8.6 seconds on mobile.

Remember that there is a lot of competition and very few users would be willing to wait even a second longer than they have to for a website to load. It is much more likely that they would hit the “back” button on their browsers, and visit another website. This could lead to you losing them as readers and as a customer forever.

Ultimately, every extra millisecond counts before loading times start to negatively impact both your business and your user experience.

5. Improve User Experience

Speaking of user experience, there are quite a few different aspects that go into it. It (UX) is one of the key factors to boosting your search engine rankings.

Some things to consider when improving your UX are:

Optimizing page loading time.
Using white space
Making your website mobile friendly.
Properly using headers (H1, H2, H3).
Creating visually appealing content (images, videos).
Avoiding annoying pop-ups and ads.
Adding user-friendly URLs.

6. Keep Monitoring Your Performance

We touched upon this point at the beginning of this article. SEO is not a process that can ever be “finished”. Sure, you might have done some pretty good optimizations to your site, received tons of traffic, had thousands of customers, etc.

Of course, you can relax for a bit, but thinking you are done is a huge mistake. In fact, Google releases algorithmic updates quite often. All those rankings and traffic you poured your heart into, could be gone within days or weeks if you are not keeping up with SEO best practices.

Don’t let that happen – always keep an eye on how well your website is performing, and make sure to fix any potential issues before they become a big problem.

Final Words

You just read about 6 of the best SEO practices your business needs to follow in 2024. Did you find this article helpful? Do you have any questions? Let us know in the comments below.

And don’t forget to follow our blog for more tips on developing your firearms business, and all the most interesting firearms-related news and information.