Ask anyone to find information online and what do you normally say? “Google it”! Google is the leader for search – with 3.45 billion searches per day! This is why having your products and services found on Google is so important. However, 86% of those searching Google never go beyond page 1 of results. This means that in order to get found, you need to show up on that first page. In fact, you need to show up in the top 5 results to really gain the edge.
So, how do you do this? Well, it all boils down to the all-important SEO! Today, we are giving you a few quick tips to help you with that!
Create Great Content
Creating content regularly helps to update your pages – and Google loves pages that update regularly! Make sure your business website has a blog and create good quality and informative blog posts! Use keywords in your titles and content. You need to do some keyword research beforehand and include keyword search phrases too! While your blogs can be short (300-500 words) do your best to include posts that are 1,000 words or more. If Google notices that your content includes better information (and more) than another site, they will bump you in rankings! You can find more benefits to having a blog for your business here! Also – check out our post about how to optimize your blog posts here!
Connect Your Content
Add relatable links to your content that take others to multiple pages of your website. You can add links to informative business pages and to older blog posts. Also, go back to older blog posts and update your content to link to newer content too!
Share Your Content
Connect with others in your industry, including bloggers, influencers or businesses (not competitors, obviously) that you can collaborate with etc – and ask them to share your content with a link back to your website. Remember – you must build relationships before expecting others to do this for you. Or, you will need to offer them free content (like a non-salesy guest blog for their page with links back to your products, services or blog posts).
Use Images – And Add Keywords
Images are great – as most people love them (especially if they can help tell a story or highlight your products and services). However, Google loves images even more! Even better – images get indexed by Google (and other search engines). How do you get your image indexed correctly so it is found or linked to your content? KEYWORDS! Make sure your file name is not “image000192”. Change the name to something descriptive (ie: “How-to-bake-a-red-velvet-cake”) include hyphen separated keywords – and include a description with keywords in your alt-text when uploading to your website. Add this in your photo captions as well! Just keep in mind: captions can be seen on pages under photos.
Keep in mind that some people – looking for a specific item by the way it “looks” will use Google’s Image Search, as it is easier to find exactly what they are looking for. For example, if someone is searching for a “Purple Coach tote bag” they will type that in “search”, click on “images” and scroll through their options (clicking on links that match what they are visually looking for!)
Your products and services (especially those services with “before and after” or even great showcase photos – like construction jobs for people searching for new beautiful cabinets, for example) should be showcased on Google Images! Don’t ever skimp out on photo descriptions, titles, alt-descriptiosn etc! you never know who is searching via Google Images! This includes your blog post photos (even stock photos) that will link back to your website! It may feel like extra work (especially if you have an online store with lots of products to sell) but, it will be worth every extra penny and minute in the long-run!
Optimize your page title & Meta Data
Page titles matter – however, you obviously want to try to keep them short (under 70 characters). Try adding some keywords and make them relevant, descriptive and when possible – make them unique! Also – scroll down to your meta description on each page (and each blog post) and write descriptive meta data! Your meta data is the description of the page people will see under your page title link when they search Google!
Optimize your URLs
Your blog post URLs should contain the main keywords of the article. This is also true for your page title URLs .
For example – our blog post title: “Why You Need An SSL Certificate For Your Website Security!” uses this URL: https://www.caspianservices.net/need-ssl-certificate-website-security/
If you click on our website link called “Meet The Team” (under our “about” tab) you will notice our URL is: https://www.caspianservices.net/meet-the-team
Optimize for mobile
Don’t forget mobile users! Mobile is used more than desktop now and if your page is not responsive and optimized for mobile you will not only lose prospective customers, but you will rank low on Google. All of the above SEO work will make no difference if you are not optimized for mobile! If your website is old, this may mean that you need to finally hire a web design company and invest in updating it. We can help you with this.
You MUST have an SSL!
Recently, Google Chrome has officially started marking non-https websites with a “This site is insecure” notification. (A non-https website is a site that does not have an SSL installed) Google made the announcement back in February that beginning in July 2018 with the release of Chrome 68, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure”. With the release of Chrome 68, Google Chrome users will be prompted that their connection is insecure anytime Google Chrome thinks you’re sending or receiving sensitive information.
How do you fix this? You will need to make sure your site is secure and is equipped with an SSL!
NOTE: Not upgrading your site with an SSL will actually cause Google to penalize you! Yes, this means that your search rankings will be affected. Having an SSL in place makes Google happy, which means you have higher chances of showing up on page 1 (along with good SEO) of web searches.
If you need an SSL, you can purchase recognized and trusted SSL certificates directly from us! (We are running a special for the month of August – purchase a new SSL certificate from us for 1 year, and get the 2nd year free – a $100 value.)
Are You Ready?
Are you ready to ramp up your SEO and rank up on Google? Remember, if you have a product or service that is inundated with search results you may have to work a little harder on your SEO or get creative (but not so far-fetched) with your keyword and keyword phrases. Make sure you are detailed and fusing phrases that people are searching for! Stay patient and keep at it! All good things take time, and SEO is a game-changer for your business! If you need additional assistance, we can help!
Have you started working on your search engine SEO strategy? Let us know how it is going for you in the comments below!