7 tips to illustrate how to climb and rank
in the search engines, and how to stay there
Even if you strictly do all your business offline, the reality today is that almost everybody will only find you through an online search. Long past are the days of a Yellow Pages listing and a small community advertisement. The fact is, 97% of people looking for a business to solve their problem (be it a plumbing issue, planning a party or accountant), searched online to find it.
If you have a physical location, 85% of people would have looked up Google Maps to see where you are.
You MUST have a presence online to survive, and more than that, you MUST rank in the search engines so customers can find you.
Here are 7 tips to improve your search engine ranking, and stay there.
Tip #1: Keyword Research
Before you begin to rank in the search engines … you need to know what your potential customers are typing in. You won’t gain much traffic if you rank for terms completely unrelated to your services!
Tip #2: Look at Your On-Page SEO
What to do with all these keywords? Now that you have an idea of what your customers are searching for, it’s time to put some of them into your website … but in a natural way. Don’t begin filling your home page with words such as “Find a plumber in Ajax if you have an emergency plumber in Ajax licensed plumbers in Ajax will clean your drains …” That will get you banned from Google really fast.
Instead, write sentences and paragraphs for your website that naturally include these keywords.
Tip #3: Perform an SEO Audit
Once you have your content and other on-page SEO factors complete, it is time to perform an SEO audit. What is this? It’s checking that your website could rank well in Google search.
First, it’s time to register in Google. While Google will likely find your website anyway, we might as well encourage them as much as possible to find and index your website and all your pages. To do this, register at Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console
Once you add and verify your website, you will begin to see data about your website.
Tip #4: Local Search
So far, we have been talking about search engine rankings, but what is known as “organic search” … these are the regular search results you are familiar with.
However, if somebody’s intent is to search for something locally, Google will first present them with local search results before the regular results.
Tip #5: Citation Building
Merely having a listing on Google Maps just announces that your business exists. Now you have to rank it in local search.
To do that, you need to have citations pointing to your business. What are citations?
Citations act as “mentions” and “votes” from other authority websites and reviewers, which helps you begin ranking in the local search listings.
Tip #6: Review Management
Similar to citations, these same websites usually also have reviews about your business. When you claim your business, you also have an opportunity to respond to reviews.
All your reviews are known as your online reputation. Of course, you want to have an excellent reputation! This will affect the rankings of your local listing.
Tip #7: Linkbuilding Outreach
While citations help “power” your local listing, your website itself is “powered” mainly by links from other websites. This is also known as “off-page SEO.”
Say you own a restaurant in Ajax. A large, highly authoritative magazine publishes an article and mentions your business.
Not only will you definitely see a huge boost in traffic to your restaurant, but your website will also get a huge boost in the organic search engine rankings.