How Can Customers Find My Business On The Internet?
So how do potential customers find you on the internet?
They use a search engine.
What is a search engine?
It’s whatever you use to make searches that ask questions you need answered. Google, Yahoo, Bing are the famous three – but what about YouTube and Facebook? They’re actually search engines too. People type questions into the search bar.
If your business is not being picked up by as many search engines as possible then you could be missing out on some valuable customers.
Oh, I hear you cry, but I’m already on the front page of Google. And my response? Is that for your name? If you can’t get onto the front page of the search engines for your name, then you are in serious trouble.
And think about all those potential customers who don’t actually know your name? What are they typing into Google? Those are the words and phrases which form the questions that you actually want to be on the front page of the SERPs for.
What is SERPS?
The Search Engine Results Pages – and the front page of that list is the first thing that you see in response to the words or phrases of your search query. It is the ten most relevant web pages to answer the question you just asked the search engine.
But how does Google decide who to put on the front page?
They look at all the websites pages which say in their Title and Description that they are about the words and phrases used in the search query. The Title is the blue underlined bit at the top of each entry and the Description is the snippet in black underneath it. See the example at the top left.
And if, as they invariably do, they have thousands of possible choices, then they decide which ones are best through:
Activity – how many people are visiting the site
Backlinks – are those people then putting a link back to that site on their own websites?
Content – if they are, it tends to suggest to the search engines that your website contains up to date and relevant information
Social Share – if they take the time to like it on Facebook, retweet or bookmark, it’s another sign that your content is good.
But Google got scammed so often over the amount of traffic and the number of backlinks and the quality of the content that it was worried we humans might not see it as the provider of the most relevant and up to date information on the questions we were asking.
So now the search engines use social interaction as human proof which confirms that a website is providing great, relevant content. The human factor is social share and Google has started using this as another way of highlighting the best options to its visitors.
So if we look at the sheet to the left, you will see a SERPS for Local SEO Services in Leigh on Sea – it’s highlighted in the Title and in the description of each entry.
This was taken at the end of last year before my competitors started to get wise to the value of Local SEO.
You will notice that I have all 10 slots on the front page.
If you can dominate that first page and push all your competition onto the second, who do you think is going to be getting the most sales enquiries?
If you would like to know how to use SEO and Social Media to help your business dominate the front page of Google, like this post using the symbols below and then give us a call on 01702 476517 or 0121 249 1306.
We have offices in Essex and Birmingham but we’ve helped businesses in Selby, West Yorkshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Blackpool, Lancashire and all over the UK.
Suite 1, 103 Leigh Road Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SS9 1JL UK
info@lollipoplocal.co.uk • 01702 476517
Share This Content | Subscribe to Updates |
September 7th, 2012 at 3:32 am
A business with a very creative site needs more than that to attract customers. One should have a great SEO company to lift them up to Google’s standards. The points written in this article sums up what things one should put on the focus. But as doing these things, always be reminded that Google hates spams. Just be careful