Small Business Saturday Blog

Barney from Bluebell Digital shares some ideas on master Google to get your small business more visibleGetting to the top of Google search is a goal for many small businesses, but it can seem like an elusive target. What Google wants, and what savvy businesses can provide, is quality content that will rise up the search rankings on it's own merit.Search engine optimization or SEO has often in the past been seen as shrouded in technical jargon! Marketing your content effectively is the core way to get more traffic from Google and this is where small businesses should focus. The overall goal is to communicate with existing customers and reach new ones. It should always be remembered that SEO is only one tactic in this mission, not an end in itself.There are two sides to SEO - the technical aspect which concentrates on making titles, tags and meta descriptions optimised so your website content is as friendly as possible to Google’s Web ‘robots’. The more compelling aspect is creating the strategy and content that you will use as a destination for people who find your site via Google.Here are a few simple to follow steps for the content generation and marketing side of the SEO equation. There are also plenty of good guides for basic technical SEO on the Web.First take a step back from your commercial goals and think about how people are going to search for your product or service on Google. Don't just think in terms of company buzzwords, industry terms or product names. Think how real people actually search for your product. They don't always use the official name, they don't always know about your new product category and they will surprise you in how they go about finding things online.Tools like the AdWords Keyword Tool or Google Analytics can help you see how people search before they arrive at your site. Combine this real-world research with key phrases you have come up with yourself and arrive at a keyword list that represents the core keywords that are crucial to your business. Think 'which words or phrases is it essential that my company shows up for on Google when people search?'Once this list is compiled you need to find a baseline for where you are today. Plug the keyword list into one of the many SEO tracking tools available - SEMRush, Moz or Majestic SEO are a few paid tools you can use and there are some free options also. The tools will show you where you rank on Google now for the keywords in the list you have created. This is how you are going to track if your technical SEO and content marketing efforts are successful over the following weeks and months.You can also track if your organic Google traffic increases using Google Analytics. It is important to remember that pages rank on Google, not whole Websites, so it isn't a case of get my Website to the top of Google, you are trying to get a particular page higher for a specific keyword search. Here comes the strategy and planning - you want your very best pages to surface at the top, which means you have to create meaningful content around the core keyword topics that you have chosen and then incorporate that content on to your Website.Planning out a new set of pages, blog posts or even video content around your important content themes and keywords is the way to gain those higher positions on Google. Without a planned approach to generating this content plus a process to optimize it for SEO within your site, you will struggle to put the right content in front of your chosen audience and improve your visibility on Google. Your goal is always to make it as easy as possible for Google to see your best content and then show it to others for relevant keyword queries.One part of compiling your keyword list is seeing whether you already have content around the keywords that you wish to rank on Google. Most often you will be able to identify areas where you want to appear for certain searches, but you don’t yet have any great content relevant to those keywords. This is an opportunity to start filling those gaps with new posts or pages. Always remember to try to be interesting or useful (or ideally both) to your prospective audience, so you can engage them and encourage them to share and interact with your content. Success on social media can help boost your SEO and will in itself bring more visitors back to your Website. As a final thought, always focus on the customer: how can my content help them? What are they interested in? How can my company show thought-leadership or credibility? How can we talk about a relevant topic that really resonates with our target market? What do they need and what problems are they trying to solve? Keep it real and plan. Write clearly and simply. Think about your audience’s needs and interests. That way you will see your best work rise to the top.