Remove the frustrations that come with your poorly ranking website 

Have you ever had a great website designed for your business, and when you launched it, you heard …crickets? 

The mentality of “build it and they will come” is often not the case for business websites. Whilst having a high quality website is important for an online business, just as having a great storefront is important for a traditional “bricks and mortar” business; it is not enough.

You also need a strategy to bring potential customers to your website, and this includes a holistic approach to marketing in the form of customer acquisition channels, digital advertising and partnership building. Our highly skilled team at GippsTech is here to help you, but for the purpose of this article, we are focussing on one of the most important pieces of the puzzle when it comes to getting your business found online - Google. 

Unfortunately, getting your business found on Google is not as easy as pressing “publish” on your new website. You need to take into consideration SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), SEM (Search Engine Marketing), keywords and business listings. Whilst many website building platforms have capabilities for you to edit SEO settings and provide advanced information which will improve your search rankings, some platforms are better than others. 

In our recent article providing an unbiased review of Squarespace versus WordPress, we highlighted the differences in SEO between these two platforms. WordPress allows you to gain more value from your keywords, and has the option to add plugins which help your website appear on Google and other search engines. Some of these available plugins and features also give you the ability to view insights for your keyword performance, enabling you to improve your SEO. In contrast, Squarespace only offers basic SEO features such as URLs, page descriptions, and titles. 

So, read on for our top tips to getting your business listed on Google, and ranking on the first page. 

1. Add your business to Google Maps

One of the first steps to getting found on Google is to add your business to Google Maps. This is something you can do easily yourself in five minutes just by completing your Google My Business Profile (2). The more information Google has about your business, the higher it will rank in search results. To create or update your account for Google My Business, head to https://www.google.com/business. You must include information about your business such as your business name, contact information, opening hours, address, business category and business description. Once completed, you will need to verify your business with Google to be added to its search results. Verification can be done by phone or by having a postcard physically mailed to your address. This can take a couple of weeks, so plan ahead and add your business to Google Maps early, well in advance of any big marketing campaign.

2. Ask your customers to leave a Google Review

A great way to improve your organic reach on Google is to ask your loyal customers to leave you a Google Review. Collecting reviews on Google improves your trustworthiness both from your customers’ and Google’s perspective, which in turns impacts your SEO and brand awareness (2). Reviews cost you nothing, and are a fantastic way to boost your search results and your credibility online. 

3. Identify keywords for your business

Keywords are the words or phrases that your target audience are typing into Google. By understanding who your audience is, and what their needs are, you can ensure that the language and words you use to market your business matches what your audience are searching for. To identify your keywords, you must first understand who your audience are, what problem they’re trying to solve, and what words they use when they’re searching for an answer to their problem (3). As an example, if you are a plumbing business in Warragul, one of your keywords should be “Plumber Warragul”. Your audience will likely Google a phrase such as this when searching for a plumber in their area, so using these words in your own website will greatly improve your ranking on Google.

A tool which may assist you in developing your business keywords is Keywords Everywhere. Keywords Everywhere is a browser add-on which assists you in developing your keywords by providing information on related searches by your audience, and data relating to keyword search volume and cost per click. 

4. Create great content

Producing content for your business is important not only to prove you are a reliable and knowledgeable source, but to improve your organic ranking on Google. Blogging for business has become popular over the years, and for good reason! Providing useful information to your audience drives them to your website and sales pages, and the more answers you provide online to the questions your audience is asking, the better your chances of getting found on Google. However, using content to improve your organic reach on search results does take time, and Google favours content which is well written and free from spelling errors (4). You can utilise tools such as Google Search Console to help you understand the queries your audience is asking on Google (4), and then you can adapt your content to suit.  

It is also recommended that you post your quality content on your business’s Google Profile too. Google My Business posts are free, and can assist your Google ranking. You can add events, news, blogs, products and services to your posts, and add images and call to actions which will help your business to stand out in search results.

5. Use Google Ads

Utilising paid ads is a fantastic way to help get your business ranking on Google, particularly for the more competitive keywords where getting to #1 without ads will take time. Pay Per Click Google Ads give your business a guaranteed spot on the first page of search results, and 75% of people have said paid ads help them to find the information they need when searching online (1). While free advertising by getting your website to rank well organically is ideal, paid advertising using Google Ads can give your business the ranking boost it needs, however, you should first consider your budget, goals and keywords for your campaign (2). The Google Keyword Planner can be utilised to help you create a list of keywords to advertise your business.  

6. Improve your website speed and mobile friendliness

It has been shown that 53% of consumers will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load (5). If your website is slow to load, or not optimised for mobile, users are likely to feel frustrated and leave your website. A slow or unsecure website, or a website which is not well designed for mobile will immediately tell Google that your business website is less likely to be a high quality source, and your ranking will be impacted. By working with your website developer to ensure your page loads quickly, your website is secure, and your content is optimised for mobile, you will improve your chances of ranking higher on search results. 

Article References:

1. Blue Corona, June 27, 2019, “How do I get to the top of Google search results in 2019”, Blue Corona, www.bluecorona.com/blog/how-do-i-get-my-business-on-the-first-page-of-google

2. Thrive Hive, “How to get found on Google”, www.thrivehive.com/how-to-get-found-on-google

3. Julie McCoy, January 7, 2019, “9 tips for creating your best SEO content in 2019”, Search Engine Journal,  www.searchenginejournal.com/best-seo-content-tips

4. Rachel Tinker, April 2, 2019, “How Google recognises and rewards quality content”, Blue Corona, www.bluecorona.com/blog/how-google-recognizes-and-rewards-quality-content

5. Hosting Tribunal, “20+ website load time statistics and facts, Hosting Tribunal, www.hostingtribunal.com/blog/how-speed-affects-website