Every small business wants its website to be on the front page of Google. Don’t you?
The challenge is that the world of SEO (search engine optimization) has been changing a lot over the last two years and most of those changes are not even known by the general population. This means that as a business owner you need to beware of SEO services for small business and big business alike. What you don’t know can really hurt you.
If you want to rank well in Google, and by that I mean you show up near the front page of Google, you need to understand at least 3 things when evaluating a company you want to work with for SEO services.
- Know the true value of being in Google search rankings
- Know how much Google requires new content on your website and on aregular basis
- Know how good Google is at stopping “Short Cuts” in this proces
Know the true value of being in Google search rankings
The main goal of being found in Google is to gain more traffic to your website. That should be your main focus. Month after month you should be able to see a general trend up in your Google traffic. That’s the short of it. You want and need more traffic and over time Google, as well as other search engines like Bing, are important tools for that. This graphic is an example of our personal traffic over the last year. Notice the trend in light of the slight pullback in September. This month is already on par to exceed our August numbers.
What you don’t want to become overly focused on is your rankings. Any company can promise you a top page or #1 ranking. What unethical SEO services for small business and internet marketing companies don’t tell you is that the keyword you will rank for has little or no traffic. That’s right, you can rank #1 in Google for a keyword that no one cares about but you and maybe you don’t even care about it.
If you focus on rankings and not on traffic then you run the risk of two things:
- Getting lots of good rankings but little or no traffic
- Having a strategy that points you in the wrong direction and wastes your money and your time
If you’re going to evaluate your traffic it also means you have to use some sort of software to track your results. Google Analytics is free and useful. It can be a little complicated to use but doesn’t integrate well with other internet marketing tasks. If you want something that is effective and more user friendly I recommend HubSpot Inbound Marketing software. (Full disclosure: We are a reseller of HubSpot). It is great for analytics as well as for managing most of your internet marketing needs.
We use it and it has really increased our efficiency, as well as helped all of the clients we work with. It’s one of the factors why our Google results are growing so well.
Know how much Google requires new content on your website and on a regular basis
This is huge! Google requires three main things before it is going to put your website higher in the search results. Here are three main requirements even though there are 200 on its checklist.
1. Have content that is relevant to what people are searching for. This is where you want to know how people are searching for information and the exact wording they are using.
This is a major factor for Google. If it’s not relevant, ie: your website content is not about what people are asking for, then Google won’t show your website to them.
2. Create new content, on new pages, on your site. That’s right, new pages with fresh content. Google believes that new content is more relevant than older content most of the time. Think about it. What would you trust more? An blog article that was published recently or two years ago. There are a lot of websites that have really old content.
The best tool for creating more content on new web pages is the blog. Blogs allow you to create ongoing content that is easily found without messing up your navigation.
3. Create content often. Google is watching for you, through your website, to regularly add content to the World Wide Web. The question that everyone asks is how often is enough. Don’t panic, but the answer is weekly and preferably twice a week to start.
It may seem over whelming but once you have a plan and build a few new habits it truly will become a part of your normal routine.
Know how good Google is at stopping “short cuts” in this process
Don’t take short cuts because there are no short cuts. Google is getting better and better at finding the people who try and cheat the system and punish them using bad SEO services for small business.
- Don’t buy incoming links to your site.
- Don’t use press releases to gain links
- Don’t believe that you will get to the top of your category overnight.
Bonus info: Know the consequences of believing quick results promises
The consequences can be steep for small companies and for big ones. If you realize that Google is not the government, but a for-profit company that makes a living by recommending websites that can answer our questions then you won’t think it owes you anything. If Google doesn't have high standards then its customers will go somewhere else. Wouldn’t you?
We had one client that came to us and had to create a brand new website. They hired a company that cheated for them and then Google punished our client not the company doing the work. The worst part was that our client was the victim. They trusted the company in good faith because they promised a lot and sounded nice. Google lowered its rankings so much that their traffic disappeared.
Not a good way to do business. It has put them back over two years in their internet strategy.
There you go. SEO is important but it really needs to be done with intention and care. As long as you are educated on the basics and work with a company like Half a Bubble Out that offers credible SEO services for small business, a track record, and references, you should be fine.
