Danielle MacInnis – Marketing Blog for Small Businesses

Many of my clients pay for google ad words. I find google ad words can be a waste of money (left hand side of page below). It can be effective but it needs to be so targeted to ensure that the customers clicking on your ad are really likely to buy your services.  I think it is much more effective to improve your chances of getting found on the organic search (right hand side) on google.

So how do you do it? Many would say you need to get the services of an SEO expert. I say no. No one can guarantee you a page 1 listing in the organic search, at least not for long. This is a constantly changing landscape. However there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of being found. Here are my top 5  tips for getting a top google ranking.

If I can do it so can you.

5 TOP TIPS FOR GOOGLE LISTING

1. Think like your customer when constructing your website. Look up key words that are descriptive of the service you deliver and words that your customers would use in their search. Use key words once in the title and a few times on each page, in bold if possible. Use a tool like Google key words or compete. This will allow you to filter those words that are heavily competed for and those that aren’t. Then choose the words that you think give you the best chance of exposure and pepper them through your home page and site. I used marketing and marketing plans.In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site. Don’t forget to use your geography to narrow your customers to the right location. Don’t be all things to everyone if you want to attract the right customers.

2. Creating  valuable content and updating it gives the search engines a reason to crawl your site and the more links you have to your content then the more likely Google is going to rank you higher. Having headings that describe the content is important. Answer customer questions. Link your blog on your website so the information is constantly updating. Be careful.Web pages that use Flash, frames, Java applets, plug-in content, audio files & video have content that search engines cannot access. Once you have that valuable content post it on other sites so you can link back to your own site. Pick sites that have a high authority if you can (valuable to our target audience).

3. Submit your site to search engines that are relevant to your customers. This also increases the chances of your site being found. As SEOMOz explains “Search engines have four functions – crawling, building an index, calculating relevancy & rankings and serving results.” SEOMoz is another great site to visit to learn the basics of SEO and they have a pdf download which is useful.

4. Look at your overall website SEO. The key words, subject heading, picture tags. The more information you can give Google when it crawls over your site the better you will be ranked. You can use Hubspots website grader to give you an indication of how to improve your site.

5. Do your own analytics.Don’t believe any SEO company that says they can guarantee you a 1 page google listing. It is impossible. Sites are updating all the time and so it is a constant moving landscape. Instead keep on top of key words and have an google analytics account so you can adjust your approach by monitoring your client visits and more importantly your conversions. It doesn’t matter how many people visit your site, the real measure is how many end up being a real prospect that you build a relationship with. Have a way of capturing these potential customers.

Tools:

Google Analytics Keyword Tool
Google Insights for Search
Google Keywords Traffic Estimator
Google Trends
WordTracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
Keyword Density Tool

Compete – to check your website against your competitors

SEOMoz – learn more about SEO

Website grader – grade your site and make changes to improve SEO