Mike Cooper
That is unless everything on your website is in place and ready for it. It’s like selling tickets for a concert without making sure you have a musician lined up, or a speaker system to play them on. People will come all hyped up for the concert, but will walk away fast realizing there is nothing there they came looking for!
Having a poorly designed website has the exact same effect. By design I am referring to how it looks, the quality of the content, how it functions, how it converts visitors into leads, and leads into customers. Before you get all worried about getting the best search results you should consider these six important items to think about before you worry about how to be #1 in search engines. With these six items in place you will find getting top results in search engines easier, as well as keep the visitors from hitting the back button on the first page.
Become a leader in your industry.
You need to convince people you’re an expert in the services or products you are selling. This is done in a few ways. Having a blog that helps educate visitors showcasing your knowledge of your industry. Being featured in publications or other websites also helps build trust. Having some great testimonials on your website is also an excellent way to establish yourself or business as a leader. The important thing about testimonials is making sure that you provide as much evidence as possible that they are real.
Creating content people want to share.
Having content is one thing, making it worth sharing is another! While it is common practice these days to take existing content that’s available and just re-write it to be your own, you need to give people a reason to share it. Ask yourself these questions; is my content informative, unique, helpful or funny? Think of your target market and make sure your content fits your industry and is good enough to be shared by those who read it.
Stop trying to serve everyone.
Make your content specific to your ideal customer and attract them. If you’re bringing in more of your ideal customers, you’re able to do more of the work you love and pass on the type of work you don’t want. How many students can afford a new BMW? Maybe a select few, but that’s not BMW’s target market, which is why you don’t see their ads with their cars doing skate board tricks like the Chevy Sonic that is appealing to the younger crowds.
Google is all about organic.
Can things be done on your site to improve your SEO? YES! Can attracting backlinks to your site improve SEO? YES! But be careful, there is a fine line between doing this in an organic healthy way and pushing too hard or cheating the system. Google really owes you nothing; you do not pay them for anything and so if they change the rules or give your site a bad ranking, there is not much you can do about it, so playing by their rules is the best option.
Google is not the only way to be found.
To gain more traffic consider spending time figuring out where your potential customers are and draw them in from there. Social media is a great marketing tool. The key is to be interactive and social. There is a lot of tools out there to help automate your marketing, but if you go too far people notice your interaction are less human and more machine like. As a result they will not communicate with you as much which means lost sales.
Always finish with a call to Action.
Every blog post or article you write should have one thing to do next! Depending on your marketing plan that may be something simple like giving them a reason to share the blog, or sign up for your email list, or BUY NOW!
Remember that the better your content, the more interactive people are with it, and the more it’s shared, the better your search engine results become! Also ask yourself, are you more likely to buy from a company because they were on the top of Google, or because you saw a friend share the companies information on a social platform?
Mike Cooper is the owner of Black Mountain Media.
Send Mike a note at: mike@blackmountainmedia.ca
See what Black Mountain does at: www.blackmountainmedia.ca
You can also call: 778-214-0519