Why You Should Keep Marketing During A Recession
Whether you’re starting a new business, or you have been neglecting your SEO, your website needs to catch up to established businesses ASAP. I have put together some handy tips to boost your Google ranking.
Google helps businesses by using “Local Search” so if it knows someone on the Sunshine Coast is looking to cut a key, it’ll return a list of local key cutting services. That’s a start, but you can enhance this advantage.
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Your business listing
This is your biggest priority. If you can get a good local search result you can end up on Google Maps straight away. You need to maintain consistency in your listings across all the sites you’re on as this makes it more likely for search engines to “trust” you. There’s what we call the Golden Seven listings, and you should maintain this order across all the directories you go on:
- URL
- Business name
- Business description
- Address
- Telephone number
- Opening hours
- Photographs
Start off on Google Business, then repeat on Bing, Yelp, Yahoo and Yellow Pages. Find smaller local directories and list on these too. These will form your Local Citations and they are invaluable to your visibility. It should only take about an hour to get listed on half a dozen directories, it is time well spent.
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Social networks
You need professional-looking social networking accounts – Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to start with. Maintain listing consistency so that the search engines recognise you from your business listings.
Each social network has a business option so create a business page in addition to your personal page. This option gives you Analytics and the chance to advertise. Use these tools as they give you automatic backlinks to your business page.
Optimise your website
Make sure you get your business address and contact details on each page of your site – if you’re using a template to build your site, look for a header and footer tool and prioritise the header.
If you operate locally rather than nationally, make sure this is reflected in your site – keywords are, well, key to this. Your business description and location should occur in your headline tags as search engines look for these first. Don’t bother with fluff-phrases like “the best”, or “professional” here. Not only does this fluff waste space but it could get you penalised. Think “hard info” rather than “soft sell” here.
Blog
Each website template has a structure – homepage, about, services page and then a contact page. Add a blog page as well. You can write about interesting anecdotes, case studies, opinions on the industry you’re in, charity events you get involved in. Just make sure that your blog page also has your business details in. A good blog can drive a lot of traffic to you.
Set yourself apart
If there are five other key-cutters on the Sunshine Coast, how do you stand out, both to Google and to customers? Look at competitors’ sites and think of something unique that you could offer. Also, if you’re blogging, mention other businesses or charities in it as this gets you backlinks. Most new sites lack backlinks and getting involved with other bodies is a good way to earn them.
Not sure where to start? Short of time? Give me a call directly on 0475 045 034 or drop me an email.
About the author
PAUL SMITH - For over 20 years I have worked with businesses, enterprises and brands in Australia, NZ, UK and US to drive digital marketing growth using organic and paid traffic strategies. No fluff or BS, just straight-forward return on investment.
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