Every business wants to be at the top of the page for a Google search but how do you get there? Businesses who rank highly on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) don’t get there by accident. But with a little time and effort you can drastically increase your businesses placement.
Start by expanding your web presence. Make sure you have an up to date Google My Business page, website, social media presence, and a blog with regular postings. Encourage your good customers to review your business on one of the many review sites.
It is vita that you maintain a consistent presence on these various sites. This shows Google that you are putting out quality content. A blog makes it easy to have fresh content display any time your website is viewed.
Identify the keywords that are most important to your business. Then write compelling content that supports those keywords. Some websites spend so much time “stuffing” keywords into their site that the information being delivered becomes secondary. Google can identify keyword stuffing and will penalize you for it. Instead, demonstrate your knowledge of the industry with interesting articles, blogs and social media posts. This will make you stand out as a thought leader in your business.
Make sure that your website is properly coded. It can read well to a viewer but if the backend does not read well to Google it can cost you. Search engines “crawl” the web, looking at the coding of each website to help determine the content and to index the site. This can be a struggle for many business owners. It often pays to have a professional make sure that your site has necessary elements such as a sitemap, robots.txt, meta data etc.
Finally, be consistent. Publishing a group of articles and posts for three weeks and then disappearing for a couple of months will not help you advance your site rank. Establish a calendar for your posts. Look to develop themes that tie-in to your business or important events that affect your business. Keep all of your digital outlets up to date, respond to online queries and reviews. When Google sees that all of your information is updated regularly has greater confidence in your site as a resource. And potential customers will fee the same way. If you are consistent, you will see an improvement in your Google ranking.
