Are you wondering how to get your business to show up on Google first? If you’re a business owner, then it makes perfect sense why you would want to ensure your website appears above your competitors in the search results for the goods and or services you provide.
Since the rise of search engines, the way people research products and services they need or want has changed dramatically. Now, when someone wants to find a plumber they simply type something like “local plumber” or “plumber near me” into their search bar and are served with what Google’s algorithm believes is the most relevant result.
This algorithm has been gradually improved over the years so that it can crawl webpages incredibly fast and find the best possible result for the search query entered by the user. The way it determines the quality and relevancy of a site is through a series of criteria known as ranking signals.
An example of a ranking signal is the ‘bounce rate’ of your site (the time it takes for someone to leave the site after they visit). A high bounce rate would suggest to the search engine that there’s something wrong with your site that’s making users leave almost as soon as they arrive.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the means by which you can ‘optimise’ your website so that it satisfies as many ranking signals as possible. So, when you ask how to get your business to show up on Google first, the answer is always SEO.
How to get your business to show up on Google first using SEO
SEO is a discipline that falls under the umbrella of digital marketing and therefore requires a degree of professional expertise to perform at a commercially viable level. While rudimentary SEO can be performed by just about anyone, nobody ever got to page one without spending any money.
While teaching yourself SEO skills or building your own in-house team are options, this is time consuming and probably costlier than simply hiring a 3rd party consultancy like SEO Shark. We have the expertise, manpower and resources necessary as a minimum to perform cost-effective SEO campaigns on your behalf.
Keyword optimisation
Regardless of whether or not you go with an agency or do everything in-house, the same basic strategies will need to be used. These strategies will revolve around your business’s most valuable keywords which are identified through a process known as keyword research.
If you are a plumber operating around Sydney, then your most valuable keywords are likely going to be a combination of ‘plumber’, ‘Sydney’ and the names of suburbs in Sydney. This is because your primary source of new business is almost always going to be from people who discovered you via a search engine.
Now that you’ve identified your most valuable keywords, you want to start incorporating them strategically throughout your domain. This means that you’ll be using them in targeted, yet sincere ways that help the search engine algorithm know what your site is relevant to.
On-page optimisation
Optimising your content with keywords is just one part of the process, you also need to make sure your website is technically up to scratch. The most engaging and relevant content won’t help if your website is non-functional.
Improving the technical functionality of your website involves reducing the size of cumbersome graphics and images, fixing broken redirects and optimising the internal link infrastructure. Making sure you have fast loading and easily navigable pages is essential to get your business to show up on Google first.
Off-page optimisation
The counterpart to on-page optimisation; off-page optimisation refers to everything you do outside of your domain to enhance its relevancy for your keywords. This primarily involves leveraging guest posts on other domains that point a link towards yours, which is a highly valuable ranking signal as it acts as a vote of confidence in your website.
The way in which these guests’ posts are leveraged is highly scrutinised by search engines as they actively punish cases of ‘link scheming’ whereby sites conspire to pay one another for an exchange of links. This is done because search engines want to make sure that their top results are websites that have sincerely earned their spot rather than paid for it.
When it comes to how to get your business to show up on Google first – a carefully research and prepared SEO strategy is the only way to go. If you need SEO work, don’t hesitate to contact the experts at SEO Shark so we can get started transforming your internet presence.
As our marketing manager at SEO Shark, James takes on the responsibility of overseeing the creation of original, persuasive and high quality content that is an integral part of how we achieve success for our clients. Through his experience working in the SEO field, James has developed a robust understanding of core digital marketing principles and has a particular interest in the growing importance of sincere and engaging content in world where issues like ‘fake news’ have become a major talking point.