6 Vital Tips to get your Website to Rank Better

…You’ve opened your business and you created a website.

Now what? This post will provide you with 6 vital tips that will transform your business from just getting by to a powerhouse of customer leads and sales!

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!

To do this, first brainstorm what terms a potential customer might type (or speak) in order to find your business. If you are a plumber in Strathfield, they might type one of these keywords in:

Plumber in Strathfield
Drain cleaning
Licensed plumber Strathfield
Plumbing repairs
Emergency plumber Strathfield

Next, you can use a tool that actually researches keywords. The best of these is Google itself, in their Keyword Planner. It is part of their Adwords program, but you can sign up for a free account and pretend you will start an Adwords PPC campaign … but actually don’t. Type in Strathfield plumbing and see how many different results you get.

Tip #2: Look at Your Content

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 Strathfield – if you have an emergency plumber in Strathfield – licensed plumbers in Strathfield will clean your drains …” That will get you banned from Google really fast.

Instead, write sentences and paragraphs for your website that naturally includes these keywords. So, thinking of a selection of keywords found in Google, you can write something like this:

“We are licensed plumbers in Strathfield servicing Sydney’s Inner West. Do you have an emergency? We are available on-call 24/7. Our services include sewer and drain clearing, water heater installation and plumbing repair.”

Sprinkle your keywords all over your page, but in a natural, informative way.

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.

You can also check Google itself to see if all your pages are indexed. Go to Google and type in site:yourdomainname.com. Google will return all the pages in its database. If some pages are not included, it’s either because they are too new or there are some problems.

Finally, check the site speed of your website. Google loves website to be fast, and anything above 80% is decent. Check your website here:

https://gtmetrix.com/

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.

Does this mean you need to create another listing? Actually, yes. Along with your website, you need a local listing in Google My Business..

To create your local listing, go to Google My Business:

https://www.google.com/business/

Once you set up a listing and verify it (usually through a PIN number or physical mail to make sure your mailing address is real), you can add details such as:

Your business name (exact same as the “NAP” details on your website)
Hours of operation
Photos of your business
Virtual video tour of your premises
Your address (same as NAP)
Your location on Google Maps
Your services
Your phone number (same as NAP)
Your website address

Tip #5: Review Management

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.

Positive reviews are gold, of course, but make sure you respond to them. You don’t have to be too detailed, simply say thank you, but be specific. If the reviewer’s name is Jim, say “Thank you, Jim, for those kind words!”

While positive reviews are of course fantastic, every business will get negative reviews. However, you can even turn these into something positive. How you respond to a negative review is the exact same as how you respond to a positive review. In both cases, potential future customers, clients and leads will read how you react.

The first step is acknowledging that a problem occurred. Apologise and sympathise.

Next, apologise but with a bit of a marketing angle. Something like “we are normally known for our exceptional attention to detail, and we regret that this didn’t happen in this case.”

Finally, end it by offering to talk offline, and give them your personal name and your phone number to try and resolve the issue.

However, don’t mention your business name. You don’t want the potential of this actual negative review showing up in the search results when somebody types in your business!

Tip #6: Links from other websites

Your website is “powered” mainly by links from other websites. This is also known as “off-page SEO.”

Say you own a restaurant in Sydney. A large, highly authoritative magazine such as Gourmet Traveller publishes an article and mentions your business.

Not only will you definitely see a huge boost in traffic to your shop, but your website will also get a huge boost in the organic search engine rankings.

Why? Because the article will likely have a link that goes back to your website. Google will then find and catalogue this link, analyse it, and note that the link was referenced from a highly respected publication. This link acts as a “vote of confidence” to your site.

There we are, 6 tips to get more customers from search engine rankings! As you go through each tip, both the organic rankings of your website and the local ranking of your business listing will become stronger and stronger.

To stay on top, keep up with these tips! Build and maintain your reviews, respond and encourage reviews, keep publishing content and keep building new links.

Now watch for a steady increase of customers, and more and more of them saying “I found you easily online!”

There we are…

6 tips to get more customers from search engine rankings! As you go through each tip, both the organic rankings of your website and the local ranking of your business listing will become stronger and stronger.

To stay on top, keep up with these tips! Build and maintain your reviews, respond and encourage reviews, keep publishing content and keep building new links.

Now watch for a steady increase of customers, and more and more of them saying “I found you easily online!”

To make it easy for your customers to find you and increase your profits you need a quality website that increases your visibility without increasing your advertising spend.

Strathfield Web Design is a professional web design agency based in Strathfield. We are fully certified and our award winning team can assist you with all aspects of your website development and digital marketing.