Whether it’s home remodeling or flatfoot reconstruction, a customer looking for your business’s services or products will turn to one of two places; family and friends or Google. The friends and family part will ultimately sort itself out if you can make your customers brand evangelists for your company. Google and other search engines are tricky; most business owners don’t know where to start. The good news is this read will highlight how to get your business on search engines.
1. Use the Right Keywords
As you search the internet for ”how to get your business on search engines,” you’ll notice the emphasis on picking the right keywords. This process is highly individualized. It’ll depend on many factors, including the type of business and location. If your business has a physical location, concentrate on geographic keywords like ”orthodontic services in New York.” However, things get a bit trickier if your operations are solely online.
Finding keywords that accurately describe your business but aren’t too competitive is important if you want to rank well. Don’t cut corners when conducting your keyword research; it’s arguably the most vital part of ranking in search engines.
2. Devise a Local Search Strategy
When considering how to get your business on search engines, note that ranking in local results is often easier than nationally or internationally. Here, locally based firms have a significant edge over rival companies. You can employ various strategies to have your website appear in local searches.
One of the most effective is using location-specific keywords in links, page titles, and your content strategy in general. Besides that, claim your Google Places page. Doing this will place your listing at the top of the results when someone specifically searches for your company name or business category in your local area.
Getting listed in regional search directories is also important. It might be as straightforward as the business listings in your local newspaper, the visitor’s bureau page, or the Chamber of Commerce. Today, most people look for services or products using Google, so it only makes sense that listings in these results benefit businesses.
3. Focus On Creating Quality Content
Google has always maintained that it aims to provide users with the most relevant and helpful information when displaying search engine results. It’s always getting better and better at achieving this goal. Creating great content means different things for different people, but there are certain universal traits you should pay attention to when trying to master how to get your business on search engines.
Always ensure what you publish is helpful to your audience. It helps in creating inbound links, which will improve your Google rankings. Don’t forget about readability. Use correct grammar and spelling. If it’s your first time having a website, take some time to learn how to write for the web, which calls for concise sentences and paragraphs with lots of white space, just like with clinical trial labels.
Don’t place ads above the fold. Recently, Google started lowering the rankings of sites with such ad placing. Unless third-party advertising is your primary source of revenue, this shouldn’t be an issue. Make it a point to stay on top of Google’s latest trends and initiatives so you know what they consider quality content.
4. Make Content Easily Shareable
If you haven’t already made this straightforward modification part of your ‘how to get your business on search engines’ efforts, you’ve undoubtedly lost out on several great leads. Include social share icons on your blog page so readers can quickly and actively share your content with their social media pals. Although social shares don’t directly affect rankings, they can increase the visibility of your articles, making earning inbound links easier. If you use WordPress for your business website, you have several plugins that can dynamically add social share buttons to your pages.
Social media platforms such as Google+, Twitter, and Facebook are great sources of backlinks. Google is giving these sites more weight in search engine results. Create a social media marketing plan and use it to promote your website.
5. Optimize Images
This may come as a surprise, but you must also optimize any images you use in your content marketing campaign as you learn how to get your business on search engines. The good thing is it doesn’t take much. All you need to do is accurately title your photos, write a keyword-rich description, and add a caption and alt tags to classify and explain the function of the image on your website. If done correctly, Google Image Search will crawl and index your image, making it searchable. It’s an indirect but effective way for internet users to find your site.
6. Generate Backlinks
This can be a challenging one. Convincing people and businesses to link to your site is no easy feat. However, doing so is necessary if you want your site to rank well. Networking is one of the most essential parts of this process, next to creating quality content. Avoid bought backlinks and scams. Google has mastered the art of quickly identifying them and will de-rank websites it suspects of using this so-called ‘black hat’ SEO.
7. Ensure Your Site Loads Fast
Although it isn’t necessary for search engine visibility, your site’s speed does matter. Plus, a fast website typically results in a better user experience, which, among other things, implies a greater conversion rate. You can use different approaches to improve loading speed to help with your ‘how to get your business on search engines’ efforts.
This includes selecting the right images and optimizing them. For example, consider having some pictures of Invisalign braces if your business offers orthodontics. It also involves deleting unnecessary metadata, using a good caching plugin, and removing those you don’t need.
8. Write Unique Meta Descriptions and Title Tags for Each Page
Your sites’ headlines appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) as title tags, and their descriptive material appears as meta descriptions. These components not only inform Google of the content and aim of each of your pages. They also control how those pages are shown in search results.
They do two things in this way: raise your site’s ranking and user click-through rates on search engine results pages. For an accurate evaluation of each of your site’s pages, you can turn to a web-based tool like Siteliner or an in-depth site crawler like Screaming Frog.
9. Eliminate 404 Errors
Users find 404 errors irritating, you probably do too, and they may limit the pages Google can index. While they likely won’t lower your rankings on their own, if you discover a 404 error where it shouldn’t be, setting up a 301 redirect or restoring the page is worthwhile. For verifying this, Google Search Console provides an amazing tool.
All you need to do is look under ‘crawl errors.’ If WordPress powers your website, you can choose from various plugins that can either 301 redirect visitors to another page, like your home page, or automatically create 404 pages that are entertaining and informative. It’s an underrated strategy for how to get your business on search engines.
10. Help People Find Your Physical Location
If your business primarily relies on a brick-and-mortar store, like one specializing in Repairable Salvage Cargo Vans For Sale, you want to ensure you always attract new clients. Putting your physical location front and center can help to encourage drop-ins. That entails placing it in several locations on your website and registering it online.
Start by including your address in the website footer so it’s simple for visitors to discover you no matter which page they land on. It should also be on your Contact page. Use text blocks rather than images wherever possible. Pictures include information that search engine crawlers can’t read.
So Where Should You Promote Your Business?
There are a lot of listings online. Thinking you can be listed in every one of them when learning how to get your business on search engines is far-fetched, for lack of a better word. It would take too much time and effort. A great place is ensuring your business has a strong presence on the most popular search engine-affiliated and local business directories. These include:
1. Google
Google is undoubtedly the marketing juggernaut; it now tops search engine rankings and online business directories. It discontinued Google+ and focused on growing its Google My Business (GMB) platform. It uses its search engine with the GMB platform, making it an essential listing directory for any company.
Once you complete your GMB profile, Google incorporates that information in its search algorithm, allowing it to appear in local search results most pertinent to your industry. The more details you add, as well as you and your clients publish images, reviews, and blog entries to your GMB listing, the more Google will learn about your business. This way, your website will rank better in search results. Your GMB listing can appear in the coveted three-pack position of Google search results if you focus on the appropriate search terms and keywords.
2. Bing Places for Business
Bing also offers a business listing, much like Google. Microsoft dubbed it ‘Bing Places For Business.’ It lets you include text about your expertise and add videos and photos. You can also post and manage numerous listings simultaneously. It works with the Google+ Local format, allowing you to manage your company’s online reputation easily.
3. Yelp
Yelp is one of the most widely used websites for local business searches. People use it to find businesses in their community. These include bail bondsman services for bailbonds, graphic design services, insurance services, etc. Yelp is also the go-to website for information on regional events.
According to Gitnux, Yelp has over 224 million reviews as of 2023. You can set up a free account for your business to upload descriptions and images of your products. You’ll also get to interact with customers. Yelp will let you advertise your services and products for a reasonable fee.
4. MerchantCircle
MerchantCircle is great for marketing your services and products and attracting new clients quickly and easily. It lets you establish an online presence, show up in top search results, run online advertisements, and take control of your reputation. MerchantCircle.com is more of a destination website that encourages users to seamlessly transition from local search to transaction, in contrast to pure local listings.
It makes it easier for customers to discover and interact with local professionals. You’ll find a thriving business-to-consumer community on MerchantCircle’s website. In 2012, Reply! Inc., a well-known platform for acquiring regionally specific consumer traffic, re-launched MerchantCircle.com. There are different ways to get new customers on this site.
LeadStore allows Merchants to purchase qualified, local leads on-demand for a range of business categories. DealStore is another great service. That makes retailer discounts, coupons, and other promotions more visible. It helps ensure premium positioning on the MerchantCircle.com category page, emails, and city pages. Your company can earn a premium spot on city- and category-specific search results by placing local sponsorships. With the help of lead management solutions, you may evaluate and manage existing clientele while receiving new client leads straight to your email or mobile device. On MerchantCircle.com and the Reply! Network, your potential customers can inquire about the products and services they seek.
5. Better Business Bureau
Receiving accreditation from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) may be the extra vote of confidence from an unbiased third party. It can help your business appear higher in local search engine results, as it will be in the BBB directory. It also signifies that your company complies with all BBB requirements. Ensure you take advantage of the over 13 million customers who use the BBB to identify companies they can trust, according to Local Search Fuel. The good thing with this site is it pushes for up-to-date listings, making falling behind with data hard. It builds customer trust through full accreditation.
6. Foursquare
Create a listing on Foursquare for Business if you have a brick-and-mortar establishment. It’s a terrific way to engage with consumers and get your business information online. Customers can check into your business anytime they visit using this local directory, which shows the number of check-ins over time.
Most consumers view Foursquare as a social media platform where they see where their friends visited and the places they frequent the most. With such a system, it’ll be easier for potential consumers to find you. Users can leave comments and reviews of your services. Foursquare Ads provides targeted advertisements.
Knowing how to get your business on search engines is crucial to any business’s online success. According to Host Armada, 93% of all website traffic comes from search engines, so it can’t be any other way. Besides that, 98% of Internet users turn to search engines at least once per month.
Host Armada also claims a person does at least three searches daily on average; therefore, getting visibility on these platforms isn’t only recommended. It’s also necessary if you want your business to prosper online. Although difficult, reaching the top of search results isn’t impossible. You’ll significantly improve your search engine rankings if you properly implement the strategies mentioned in this read
