Most business aspire to rank high in search results, which is not surprising. A person who is actively searching for products or services is easy to convert to a paying customer. If your site ranks high enough to catch their attention, and your business can fulfill their need, you can make a sale pretty quickly and easily. Search drives over 1/4 of all web traffic on desktop machines. Data isn’t readily available (yet) for mobile devices, but it’s a safe bet that people on the go are letting search guide their actions even more.
To rank higher, a lot of business invest in paid search; google Adwords had a revenue of over $145 billion in 2020. There’s no doubt that this investment can pay off. For any search you make on google, the first results you see at the top of the list are paid. However, a lot of businesses don’t have the resources to purchase ads. Also, 4/5 of all web traffic comes through organically ranked searches, meaning that the vast majority of traffic flows through results that aren’t paid.
So, how can you start ranking higher without investing a ton of time and money?
- Do a site audit and fix basic problems with your website. Take a look at your site through they eyes of your customers. Is your site user friendly? Is there a logical hierarchy? Is important information easy to find? Do all of the links work? Is the information up to date? Check the experience on different devices using different browsers. Non-responsive sites (where the information doesn’t display correctly on different screens) is a huge pet peeve of mine. You can bet that a lot of your users are viewing your site on a phone. Having a site that requires a computer is frustrating to people on other devices and it can cause them to leave the site. It can even cost you sales.
- Pepper in your keywords organically. Again,you need to think about things from your customer’s perspective. What words and phrases are they searching for? Conduct those searches yourself and see what sites are coming up and why. Make sure your keywords are found on the main pages of your site (for example: home, about us, services, etc.). Don’t flood your pages with the words in a way that makes no sense; google and other search engines actually “subtract points” for having the words too many times for no good reason. Instead, make sure they are there in a natural way that explains what you do clearly. Add your location as well, to get those “near me” results.
- Provide useful content. Nothing gets better long term results than having information on your site that your customers actually need. Teach them something, tell them something cool, or provide resources for where they might learn what they need to know. This establishes trust, shows your expertise, and builds repeat traffic. Even if the person visiting your site for your content isn’t shopping for your product or service at the time, they will think of you when they do need what you sell, or when anyone asks them for a recommendation.
There are many things you can do to rank higher in search engines. Try these three things today to start bringing in more traffic for free.
Substance and Style 