Lost or Found - where are you when Google goes searching?

Being Found Being Relevant |Inspires Google Search Marketing Services 

Being found on Google should be a prime focus for any business owner. It's the biggest search engine in the World and in the UK dominates its competition with an 86% share of the market. That's not to say other search engines aren't important, but in our experience - focusing on Google will also have a positive impact on your search rankings on Yahoo and Bing.

We know how much traffic our site receives from Google, and that same principle applies to the vast majority of our clients. It can obviously vary, but if a large volume of your traffic comes from one source, then it makes sense to focus a lot of your online marketing efforts in that area.

We talk about "routes to market" and essentially in an online world this is a massive route to market.

It's no coincidence that when search engine rankings change, traffic follows suit.

In our business, less traffic means fewer enquiries. Fewer enquiries mean fewer opportunities for us to sell our services, which naturally enough impacts our bottom line.

This is not unique and is an established reality of doing business in 2015.

A Reminder Of What Google Delivers For Your Business

1) Level The Playing Field

Google doesn’t care about the size of your business. If you present fresh, relevant content consistently you can go toe-to-toe with businesses much larger than your own.

2) Low Cost

Effective Google marketing can be low cost or no cost. Compare that to newspaper advertising or Yell.com?

3) Measurable

Tracking your Google traffic and your rankings is made easy by the free tools Google offers. Google Analytics (to a degree, bearing in mind EU Cookie Privacy guidelines) can show you the users journey whilst on your website, plus what works, and what doesn’t.

Search Console (aka Google Webmaster Tools; Ed: yet another name change) can tell you much more about how Google views your website and about the traffic that you are missing out on. This degree of Management Information is almost impossible to garner for most marketing activities.

4) Non-Intrusive

Google allows you to focus more of your energy on being found, rather than pushing your products or services on people (Ed: although that is changing with the increase in Ad Space taken on a Google search results page). Google enables inbound & content marketing by letting people find you when THEY need you. Google don’t bombard users with notifications or attempt to re-engage - the searcher is in control.

5) Extend Your Reach

Being found on Google gives you the opportunity to extend your sphere of influence far beyond your locality.

So What Do We Do

On-Site Optimisation (Ying)

Depending on the type of business you run and the level of competition you face, on-site optimisation can help boost your search engine rankings. From creating a Google friendly sitemap (aka XML Sitemap with KML), to delivering content structured to include your chosen keywords, on-site SEO is the area you can most quickly influence.

Google is looking for clear and consistent indicators as to the nature of your content. To use their own keyword - they are looking for 'relevancy'. If your title text, headings, metadata and body content are tightly focused around a specific keyword or phrase - you will stand a better chance of being indexed highly.

Off-Site Optimisation (Yang)

If on-site SEO is Ying, then off-site is very much Yang.

Off-site optimisation is all about sharing meaningful rich content and in return getting meaningful and relevant links back to your site. It's essentially a popularity contest. The more links you have pointing to pages on your site, Google infers that the content you provide must be decent - why else would people link to it? But beware - all links are not equal.

Many site owners had their sites delisted from Google (Not a good thing!) as a result of trying to 'game the system' by employing what is known as 'Link Farms'. Irrelevant links just won't work anymore. Directory site links still have value but the actual Directory Sites themselves (e.g. Yell & Thomson Local) have much lower ranking value as a consequence of previous algorithm updates. Google are wise to that particular ploy from the Directory sites where they essentially out ranked local businesses for their own key phrases. Instead, focus on getting relevant, high-quality links back to your site.

Google My Business

Do you ever notice that for some local Google searches that small directory listings feature prominently at the top of the search results page? That’s Google My Business at work. It’s the Worlds biggest online business directory and it’s free. We’ve covered Google My Business in two recent posts. You can find out more by visiting:
Time to Flag Up a potential issue - Google Map Listings
Google My Business - The Power of Local Google Map Listings

Google Marketing Services From Inspire

Any website we develop is created to be 'Google Friendly'. Your website might be wonderful, but if nobody finds it, it's clearly an investment that is unlikely to pay dividends for your business. And being found, starts with Google. At Inspire, we've developed a range of flexible Google Marketing services to improve your search rankings and boost your online traffic.

We'll work with you to understand the key phrases for your business and their relative competitiveness in your local market. We'll work on your website, your Google account and the wider web. Our three-pronged approach won't happen overnight. We'll undertake an initial piece of work and over the following two months we’ll make the necessary alterations to help turn Google into one of the biggest assets of your business.

To find out more visit Search Engine Optimisation Packages or call David on 01738 70 006.   

David Dwyer is Managing Director of Inspire Web Development. He has years of experience in a range of web and IT roles plus seven years in sales and marketing in a blue-chip FMCG company. David’s academic and professional qualifications include a BA (Hons) in Business Economics (Personnel & Ergonomics) from the University of Paisley, an MSc in Information Technology (Systems) from Heriot-Watt University and PRINCE2 Practitioner-level certification. He is also an active member of the British Computer Society, Entrepreneurial Exchange and Business for Scotland.

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