Are you finding it hard to rank your business high on Google? You’re certainly not alone. Luckily, there are strategies you can utilize to leverage your brand amidst the world’s largest search engine. The usage of these strategies is referred to as Search Engine Optimization, SEO, which is the process of optimizing your website to allow the flow of free organic traffic to your page. Essentially, this helps Google better understand what your page is about. Google is then able to identify your page as being relevant to user’s searches, and therefore allows your site to appear higher up while users are browsing. 

The main goal for every brand is to create awareness, recognition, trust, and build the company as a whole. Every brand knows how important it is to have an online presence, but how can you develop that without receiving much attention on the web? Relying on your social media handles alone to drive traffic to your site is simply turning a blind eye to an incredible resource that is available at your fingertips.

SEO has progressively gotten more and more complex over the years. In the present day, Google search results pop up in the following order: ads, maps, and then most of the time, directories. Unfortunately, even if you are at the top of your market, you can only realistically be located on the lower 25% to 35% of the first page of search results. Considering Google controls about 90% of all searches, if your ranking isn’t high, you run the risk of never being found. Additionally, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, where the majority of businesses are operating remotely, it is more important than ever to make sure your SEO is utilizing up to date tactics.

Here are some tips on how to go about earning a higher ranking on Google:

Be Specific and Thorough:

Find your niche market and cater specifically to that audience. Be thorough with your content and provide details beyond the surface of related topics. Google favors these websites versus ones that have content on a wide variety of unrelated topics. This was implemented with Google’s Hummingbird update that allowed for the search engine to have a better understanding of the intent of user’s searches, and ultimately attempting to match them to the most relevant sites. 

Find Relevant Keywords:

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and narrow down key words and phrases you would search for when looking for a business or organization such as yours. From there, you can use a keyword explorer site to see how popular a keyword is in your industry. Websites such as semrush.com, moz.com, ahrefs.com and many more will provide many helpful resources and help you find the best keywords, rankings of websites that use them, and other keywords that highly-ranked websites in your industry are using. The most relevant keywords found, should then be used throughout your website. However, overuse of them will come off as spammy. Usage of keywords should sound natural and flow well in a sentence.

Optimize Your Title Tags and Meta Descriptions:

Title tags are the links that appear as headings at the top of a listing when performing a Google search. A meta description is the text underneath these headings that provides further detail and preview of the link. Since these are the first items that appear when doing a Google search, it is essential to optimize them using relevant keywords. Remember to consider the customer’s point of view, in that they are very unlikely to click on title tags that don’t state information that’s in the same realm as what they are looking for.

Build out your Google Business Listing

Google business listings are not websites, rather sections within a Google search page that appear when someone is searching for your products, services, related key words or brand, that states all the information regarding your business. These listings appear second in order, immediately after advertisements, on a search results page. Google only shows three companies in the standard view, unless you click “view all” where you can then see all of the listings. These three companies are the highest ranked by Google, and get the privilege of appearing in what is called the “three pack” or the initial view of a searcher. Previously, Google had a “seven pack” in the initial view, which made it a lot easier for brands to receive more traffic. Being in the three pack helps your overall Google ranking and will therefore help bring more people to your website.

So how can you get your brand in the three pack? Google favors the brands who build out their Google business listings as much as possible. You can do this for free by using Google My Business, and either claiming a listing that is already there for your business, or creating one from scratch. By filling in all of the information it allows you to input, adding photos, receiving and responding to reviews, and actively updating information, Google will in turn rank you higher.

Diving into Google Search Console

If you are continually optimizing your site, you know SEO is never finished and what better way to improve your ranking than using tools they provide? Google Search Console, formally Google Webmaster tools, is one of the most powerful keyword tools in the industry. And the best part? It’s FREE, available to everyone, and filled with all your traffic data from search queries. Search Console provides various tools to assist with day-to-day management, such as re-indexing web pages, monitor XML sitemaps, and even lets you see how Google sees particular pages and URLs on your site.

Use Analytics Tools:

Analytics tools will provide hard facts as to whether or not your SEO tactics are truly making an impact. This will help give you insight on what to improve on, and what to continue doing. A very popular analytics tool for keywords is Google Console and SEMrush. 

These tips are a great place to start to improve your Google ranking and facilitate increased brand exposure. Show Google your site is worthy of ranking! Get SEOrious!

Don Silver

COO