3 Steps to Top Google Visibility

Once you understand what makes a webpage show at the top of search results, it’s easy to create an effective SEO plan for your own website. And you can boil that down to just three areas, but before we get into those, let’s first make sure we really understand SEO.

So let’s step back for a moment and consider what the Web actually is in its most basic form. The Web is nothing more than trillions of digital pages connected by links. Lets first address the importance of pages.

A Bunch of Pages

All pages on the internet must be categorized by search engines like Google so when someone enters their search query, all the relevant pages in that category show up. Google lists those pages in order of importance and relevance to the searcher. Getting your page to show for the right users is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

A Bunch of Links

The Web connects your pages through links. For example, if you search for a topic in Google, your search results page will render a list of links to other pages that are relevant to your search query. The pages on your website are linked to other pages through your navigation. You can also find links on almost every page on the Web. Pages and links, pages and links.

Search engines like Google send out digital crawlers called web bots or spiders that crawl those pages using the links between them to find even more pages, scouring content to determine how to categorize each page.

The information they find should tell them which consumers would be interested in the content. The web bots even watch how users interact with the pages to gather even more data.

You’ll understand more about the importance of links in a little bit, but first, lets see how we can create pages that rank well.

Prioritizing Pages

Google wants its search engine to be effective and highly relevant so consumers keep coming back to it more and more; therefore, it’s in Google’s best interest to show the most relevant pages to consumers (categorizing) and then ranking them in order of importance (prioritization).

Your job is to convince Google that your pages are indeed the most valuable to consumers. Here’s how:

Technical SEO

When my team and I build a website, we implement hundreds of technical SEO features that make your website crawl-able by the search engines and easily categorized within search results. These features include everything from security, code optimization, proper use of tags, fast loading pages and a lot more, all of which Google loves; so much so, that It actually gives you a ranking boost when done properly.

I’m not going to address any of this technical SEO here because it’s something your web developer should implement, not you. Once these features are set, most of them don’t need to be revisited on a regular basis. But let’s address what you can do.

First Step: Write Deep, Comprehensive Content

Keep adding good content. Content that would be relevant to the type of visitors you want to attract. Don’t worry about keyword density and other outdated tactics. Just add content and copy that your users will find useful.

Google loves deep, relevant and unique content. What do I mean by deep? Give your visitors everything they would want to know about a particular topic. For example…

Ending Search

Here’s a good way to look at it: If your visitor is searching the Web for information on a particular topic, think of what information you would need to give them that would end their search. They should arrive to your page and decide,

“Hey, this is everything I was looking for. I don’t need to keep looking further.”

Do that, and you’ve essentially ended the user’s search.

Remember those bots? Well, they’re taking notice. If your website continuously “ends search,” it tells Google that visitors are finding your content valuable. They’re getting everything they need and don’t need to keep searching.

If they’re staying on your page for a while, engaging with you, then those are also signs that you have provided valuable content. And this is key: the more valuable you are, the more Google will make your page visible so others can find it easily as well. In other words, your relevant, valuable page will get an uplift in search results.

The more that consumers like your content, the more Google likes your content. Since Google wants to make good content available to more users, it shows the good stuff at the top of search.  

Avoid Boring and Meaningless Content

If your visitors are finding your page, but clicking the back button and searching your competitors for better offers or information, this could tell the search engines that you don’t have much to offer. This is why I cringe every time I read shallow, meaningless content on pages.

Too many people don’t know what to put on their pages so they just fill it with a bunch of garbage, meaningless lists or worse, they copy it from other websites. Don’t do this. Google hates duplicate content.

Second Step: Engage in an Inbound Link Campaign

OK, back to links. Inbound links are simply a link from another website to yours. Why is this important? When another website links to yours, it means the owner of that website believes your content is valuable; so valuable, that they are willing to send their visitors to you via the link.

Google believes that links are such an important indication of good content, that they have admitted inbound links to be one of their top three ranking factors.

More and more links indicate to search engines that people are valuing your content. Therefore, they will make your page more visible in search because it is likely that others will find it valuable to. The way to make your content more accessible to consumers is to position it near the top of search results so it’s easy to find.

Do you see a theme developing here? Google wants to make important content easily accessible to its users, so it ranks what it believes to be the most important, relevant and useful at the top of search. Your job is to create that content and make it accessible to both users and bots.

Get Mostly Relevant, Authoritative Links

Be careful. Marketers have long since figured out how important links are so they’ve done everything they can to manipulate the practice to get as many links pointed to their websites as they can.

They use all sorts of tactics such as paid link farms, automated linking schemes and more. But Google has a lot of really smart software engineers to fight web spam and now only relevant, authoritative links are helpful for SEO.

To see the difference between a relevant link and one that might appear spammy, let’s use an example. Say you own a flower shop in San Diego, California. Links from an auto detailer website in New York aren’t going to do much good for your position in search results. The auto detailer is not relevant to the flower business and it probably doesn’t have much authority either.

A few links like this are fine and can help a little, but get dozens of non relevant links while having no authoritative links, and your position within search results will actually decline.

Furthermore, it’s against Google’s terms of service to purchase links or to conduct in practices that are meant to game the system. Google wants you to get links naturally.

How to Get Inbound Links

Nonetheless, you should engage in a long-term link building campaign to get legitimate, relevant and authoritative inbound links. So how do you do that? Here are a few ideas:

The Media
Get a media source like a newspaper, magazine or news show to do an article on your business. In most cases, they’ll post the article online and link to your business, giving you big brownie points from Google.

A national article is great because papers like the New York Times and Washington Post have a lot of authority, but local papers are relevant if you sell to a local community. So both types are good.

Do This: I was once the Communications Director for a candidate for US Congress. The candidate was also a retired Navy Seal and combat veteran so I contacted all the local news organizations to make sure they knew he was available as an expert whenever they were doing a story involving the military, veterans, national security and even foreign affairs. We got a ton of coverage because of this. Can you do the same? Are you an expert in your industry? If so, reach out to the media and make sure they give you a link whenever they quote you in an online article.

Vendors
If you have suppliers or vendors, be sure to have them add a link from their website to yours. The links from them are highly relevant. That’s an easy one.

Business Directories
You should absolutely be visible in online business directories like the Chamber of Commerce website, Yelp, the Online Yellow Pages, Angie’s List and Google My Business if you sell to a local community.

Just get your business listed in the big directories and those that are niche or community specific. Most are free, but a few are paid. You’ll have to decide if the paid directories are with it for you.

Don’t worry about the small ones. The link juice you get from Tim’s Business Listings are not worth the effort, but the yellowpages.com is.

Be sure that your business name, address and phone number are listed exactly the same in all directories across the web. This is very important. If there are inconsistencies, you can confuse the web bots and they may not know how to categorize your website.

Public Relations
People often ask me to do SEO for them. As mentioned, my agency only does technical SEO as a value added service when we design a website. We believe that ongoing SEO is best done in-house.

If you do go for outside help, find a public relations agency that understands SEO. They’re the ones with the media connections to get you mentioned in important publications and on websites that can link to you.

Community Involvement
Getting out in your community, sponsoring an event or donating to a local charity is a good way to get that organization to link back to your website. The source may not be relevant to your business, but that’s OK in this case. If it’s a legitimate organization and is local for you, then it will help.

Guest Posting
There is some debate as to whether or not posting an article on a blog, in a forum or on another website is an effective linking opportunity. The idea is that somewhere in that post or author’s bio, you can link back to your website.

The practice has been manipulated a bit over the years and Google knows this; however, any link that targeted consumers use to find your website is a good link. If people are interacting with you on your website via a link in a guest post, then by all means, it’s a good link and will help your SEO.

Share good content
You already know you’re supposed to be writing good content. You should share it on social media like Facebook, Instagram and anywhere else your customers are likely to hang out. If it’s good enough, you’ll create a small buzz and you’ll soon find others mentioning it in forums, comments and blogs.

This is actually the idea search engines like Google have in mind. They want to see good content shared by others as an indication of how important your website is. So get it out there and others will be compelled to link to it.

Step 3: Get More Targeted Traffic

Simply put, the more engaging traffic you get, the better your website will do in search results. You have to do more than drive traffic, though. If you can get people to consistently visit your website, scroll down the page, click on things, fill out web forms and so forth, then you should see an improvement in search results.

Your visitors should be targeted and you need to have a good user experience on your pages. Your web designer should have taken care of this for you.

Keep adding relevant content. You can do this in the form of blog posts or landing pages. Share your engaging content across social media.

Or, you can even purchase ads. Digital advertising like Google Ads is a great way to get immediate traffic and sales. Even though traffic from paid ads won’t help your website rank better in organic search results, user engagement will.

Go Offline
Offline promotions and advertising can help you get web traffic, especially if you tie a promotion to a coupon or discount the user can only access from your website.

SEO works best within the context of a larger marketing campaign. It should never be done alone, but with other promotional strategies such as offline advertising.

Wrapping it All Up

You don’t need to hire an SEO agency to rank well in Google search results. The areas I outlined above comprise almost 90% of what an SEO agency would do for you, and given that there are so many SEO companies out there using old, outdated methods, chances are they’d do more harm than good. To summarize, do this:

1. Keep writing good, comprehensive (deep) content
2. Engage in an inbound link campaign
3. Keep driving targeted, relevant traffic to your website

Consistently work on these three areas as outlined above and you’ll find your website showing more prominently for more consumer searches.

As always, I’d like to know your thoughts. Do you have any ideas for getting links? Please provide your questions and feedback in the comment section below.

The Advantages of Digital Advertising

There are plenty of ways to drive sales to your business, but if you want immediate, relevant traffic from consumers who are ready to buy from you today, then digital advertising is the way to go. Here are a few reasons why:

Target Relevant Customers

Digital advertising is an extremely targeted marketing channel. You can advertise to just the consumers who are looking for your specific product or service and are ready to buy from you right now.

So for example, if you sell jewelry in Bali, and there are 70 people currently looking for engagement rings, you can target just those 70 people. You don’t have to waste ad spend on people who will never convert like you would in print media or television advertising.

This enables you to spend more money on the right people while ignoring those who will never buy from you. It’s a brilliant way to do business.

Measure Your Performance

With the data collection and measurement tools in both Google Ads and Google Analytics you know exactly which consumers are likely to visit your site, engage with you and click the purchase button. Metrics can be broken down in so many ways, that it may take a certified expert to read and understand how to use the data to improve your campaign performance.

From demographics, to specific buying patterns, the data is all there, just waiting for you to dig in.

The Possibilities are Almost Endless

The Google Ads platform does a lot. In fact, all the features can be daunting to those who are not experienced with it. The variations on how, where and when to show your ads are almost endless.

With bidding adjustments, ad formats, keyword match types, ad extensions, audience types, behavioral adjustments and so much more, you can create your ads to work the best for each audience you target.

Google provides free video tutorials for those interested in learning all these features, but of course, we recommend hiring an experienced and certified Google Partner.

Improved Customer Support

You don’t even need to know how to use the Google Ads platform in order to start advertising. Google customer support reps will set up your ads for you. Just give them a call and they’ll do all the work.

Be careful, in order to optimize your campaigns and to adjust features to beat your competitors, you’ll have to do more. Get in touch with me to see what a certified Google Partner can do to help.

Deliver what your visitors want.

I don’t even have to see it.

Your website has too many features and not enough benefit to the consumer. I already know because every new client with whom I meet has the same problem and it’s costing you money.

We ran an internal survey listing two different value propositions for the same conversion, one describing a feature and another describing a benefit. After 920 results, consumers reacted more favorably to the benefit almost eight out of ten times. No surprise.

This likely means if you’re addressing features instead of benefits, you’re losing visitors. That means you’re losing customers, which means you’re losing money.

Below is an example of how companies do it wrong. It was easy to find. It took all of ten seconds and one search – a pretty good indication that the problem is prevalent.

The Difference Between Features and Benefits

Features are all the qualities about you and your business that make you so damn fabulous.

You’re smart, you’ve got a lot of experience, you’re credentialed, your customers love you, you have a family owned business, your products or services are the best in town and your prices are competitive, if not down-right cheap. You even give part of your proceeds to the dyslexic chipmunk foundation. Wow! What a company.

The problem is nobody cares (except for maybe the cheap part, but we’ll get into that later). What your visitors care about is themselves. They care about their own problems and want to know if you can solve them.

Sure, all those features that make you great are still important, but that’s not what your customers are buying.

They are buying a solution to their problem. It’s fine, and perhaps important, to note how good you are, but you shouldn’t include that stuff in your selling proposition.

Still confused? Keep reading and I’ll break all this down for you.

Let’s look at an example. When you get your haircut, you probably have a favorite barber shop or salon that you go to and even have a specific person you like cutting your hair.

Do you go to them because they have the most experience or because they are graduates of Robert Cromeans Hair Styling School? You probably don’t even know where your hair cutter went to school.

Do you go to them because they are the cheapest in town? I doubt it.

You use the same hair cutter because they are the only one who can cut your hair the way you like it. You’d even pay a little extra if you had to. You like the way you look in the mirror after the haircut and feel good about yourself afterwards, don’t you?

How you feel about yourself is the benefit you received for getting your haircut and it’s the reason you and everyone else goes to that particular stylist or barber, not because of where they went to school, how much experience they have or even how cheap the cut was.

As a hair stylist, if you can sell that feeling, you’ll never have to worry about new customers again. Consumers will be lining up to schedule appointments.

So why are you still doing it wrong?

Because features are easy. It’s what you know. You love talking about your business. It’s your favorite subject. You love sharing your expertise with the world and you’re certain everyone one else can’t wait to hear about it.

Many of you don’t know how to write about benefits.

I admit, it’s difficult. You may start with the right intentions, but often your content slowly drifts back toward features. After all, you’re sure your customers want to go with the best company so it’s up to you to prove to them you’re the best, right?

The fact is, your writing needs to have a bit of both. We can probably use the 80/20 rule here with 80% of your content being about benefits and 20% about features.

Consumers actually do want to know a few features, but that’s not what motivates them to buy from you.

They are going to buy from you when they are convinced that you can meet their needs.

This is how you make rational buying decisions as well (actually there’s a whole other emotional element that plays a big role in it, too, but I’ll get into that in a another post).

The problem is that as business owners, it’s often difficult to look at our business from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know what we know.

How to Write Benefits

So how do you write about benefits? To get to the benefits of your product or service, you need to dig deeper. State your feature, then ask a question like, so what? …and so? or …which means?

Our plumbers are certified experts.
So what?
They’ve been trained and are licensed?
So what?
They know how to fix your plumbing emergency fast.
So what?
They’ll save your home from getting damaged by broken pipes.
So what?
Your stuff won’t get damaged.
So what?
You’ll be happier.

So does this mean as a plumber you should sell happiness? No, not really, but everyone likes jobs that are done correctly the first time so they don’t have to hassle with rework and damaged household items. What a headache.

Learn how to address the benefits that features provide. Here’s another example:

We have an app that helps you find local restaurants?
Which means?
You can find the best places to eat.
Which means?
You won’t waste quality time with your family on bad experiences.

Or this one:

Our hotel has the best customer reviews in the city.
And so?
If so many others have had good experiences, so will you?

See how it works with almost any feature of your business? If that isn’t enough, here’s a chart which does some of the work for you:

What Benefits Can Do for You

When we accept a new marketing client at Web Groovin, we always A/B test landing pages. We take the client’s heavily featured pages and run them against our benefits-focused landing pages and track the performance overseveral weeks.

We’ve been using this process since 2009 and our benefits-focused landing pages have never lost a split test. Not once.

We know through years of research and testing that consumers buy emotionally, not rationally.

By focusing on customer benefits in your marketing, you address the heart of your prospects’ pain. Do this and the transaction becomes emotional for them, even for seemingly bland and boring products and services.

Your competitors look the same to consumers because they don’t differentiate themselves from one another. Everyone is the leader. Everyone has the greatest value and they all have a name you can trust. You can stand out by asking yourself, “so what?”

Even the average business owner can create content that will help their website rank better. Here’s how:

Google updates continue to reward websites that have compelling content.

We’ve seen evidence that pages that are useful and relevant to consumers can make it to the top of Google search results, even when the website has relatively poor optimization and few inbound links.

Many of the articles I read on promoting websites with content are for other marketers, but what about business owners who work with their hands or have a brick and mortar business?

How do you use content to promote your business if you’re not a writer or content marketer? You have a business to run, sales to make, purchase orders to fill and deadlines to meet.

You want your business to show at the top of search results just like everyone else, but you don’t have the time to write weekly content.

That’s good because most of you would do it wrong anyway.

Consider this; how excited are you to read your mortgage broker’s blog each week? Can’t wait to get your fill of fifteen year amortization rates and new Fannie Mae guidelines?

If you’re a plumber, are you sending a weekly newsletter to your customers with plumbing tips and your grandmother’s favorite recipes? God, I hope not.

It sounds harsh, but nobody cares about a plumber until they actually need one. Even then, consumers are unlikely to read a plumber’s newsletter or blog.

They just want someone to come out as quickly as they can to fix a leaking pipe before their Simon and Garfunkel collection gets soaked.

So if you’re a contractor, plumber, lawyer, doctor, salon owner, accountant, pet shop owner, software developer, realtor, insurance professional, sales agent or restaurant owner, can you get content on your website that is good enough to get you more business? Sure you can.

The first step is to get it right on your website. The content on your home page, service pages, product pages and landing pages need to be compelling and extraordinary. Here’s how to do it:

Concentrate on Improving Lives

As a blogger, I try to offer as much useful information as I can that improves the lives of my readers in some way.

You don’t need to write weekly blog posts in order to do that as well. You can add that stuff to your service or product pages.

Even if you work in a boring industry, you can create content that is so extraordinary and compelling that other websites will be compelled to link to it and Google crawlers will find it useful enough to rank it well within search, driving more visitor traffic to your business.

Compelling and extraordinary content alone is enough to give your website a boost in search results. If it’s good enough, Google will notice.

Make Your Content Mean Something

If you’re in any of the industries I described above or similar line of work, perform some research on competitors in your area.

Check out their websites and see what they’ve written on their pages. I guarantee you that most of it is garbage.

They all write the same clichés: we’re committed to excellence; a name you can trust; we’ve been in business for 35 years; meet the team; we’re a family owned business; go with the best; you deserve the best, Boston’s premier family law firm…bla, bla, bla.

The previous paragraph lists portions of real headlines that I easily found with a quick local business search.

Other than the fact that most of them are about the company rather than the consumer, they’re just plain boring. We’ve heard them so many times that consumers have become desensitized, rendering them useless.

The paragraphs that typically follow headlines like that are equally dull.

It turns out that business owners hate writing so much that they either copy content from other websites or they just fill their pages with words, putting no effort into them whatsoever.

That’s a mistake because guess what? Consumers are reading your content. If you want to pull them in, it’s got to be unique, relevant and engaging. It’s got to mean something to them.

To find out what is important to consumers you need to ask them.

Pay attention to what questions they’re asking during sales calls and service visits. Conduct surveys to find out what their most pressing concerns are.

The better you answer those questions on the content of your pages, the more compelling your website will be to them—and to search engines.

Balkan Trails is a client of ConversionXL (no wonder they’re doing it right). Above, you can see they do a really good job at explaining exactly what they do.

Their headline is crystal clear and they explain it further in a subheadling that is compelling and unique. Hopefully, what follows below the fold is some equally intriguing content.

Break Up Your Content

Never have text on your pages that is too long because most consumers scan pages. They don’t read long text unless they find something that catches their attention.

That’s why you need strong titles that address their concerns followed by subtitles and paragraphs that go into further detail.

We’ve found that keeping your readers engaged and on your site longer has a positive impact on search results.

Use Bullet Points

Bullet points are a good way for visitors to quickly determine if they are in the right place or not. You can address particular concerns in the bullets and then link to content that is more detailed.

There are many ways you can do this. Ask your web developer for ideas.

It’s not about you. It’s about them.

Consumers don’t care about you. They don’t’ care how long you’ve been in practice or that yours is a family owned business or that you give to charities.

Your visitors have a need and more than anything else, you need to address that need.

This is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but resist the temptation to write about your own accomplishments.

Yes, consumers want to make sure they are using the best company, but guess what? Every website claims to be the best company.

As much as you can, limit the number of times you use the words “we, us, our, me and I.” Rather, use “you and your.”

This will help you stay focused on serving consumers’ needs instead of bragging about yourself. Focusing your attention on the consumer helps them stay engaged. Search engines notice metrics such as consumer engagement and will reward you for it.

Consumer Benefits, Not Company Features

You’ve probably heard this before, but you need to focus on benefits, not features. I’m sure you remember it when you’re on sales calls, but why does all that stuff go out the window when it comes to your website? It shouldn’t.

Features are all the things that make your company great. That stuff is important, but that’s all most company websites contain.

Most small business owners don’t know how to write about anything else. They leave out consumer benefits, which is the value consumers receive by choosing your company.

You must learn how to distinguish between company features and consumer benefits. Below is a chart that should help.

Use Images

Use plenty of images. Make sure they are strategically placed on your page.

Most of your competitors are just placing random images wherever it seems to look good. That can be disruptive to the visitor and cause them to leave your website.

The most important thing to remember is that your images need to be used to support your content. They are not just more filler.

Images further your message and help you promote your product or service more clearly.

So if you have a salon, images of supermodels with unrealistic hair designs might not resonate with consumers, but an image of a real client in your chair getting a fantastic new hair style will knock their socks off.

TOP OF THE WEB

A Business Owner’s Guide to Greater Online Visibility

Here’s an example of what you’ll find:

To get your free handbook, just use the web form at the top of this page and we’l send it to you immediately. Of course, once you’ve read it, feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions or to let us know what you think.