We’re sure you’ve heard people harping on about how important it is to be at the top of the Google search engine, and as much as you might be sick of hearing it, for any small to medium sized business, they’re kind of right!
Being high up on the Google search engine can literally put you leaps and bounds ahead of your competition by making you more accessible to your target audience. Some companies will literally spend a fortune trying to achieve a high ranking Google status to improve their visibility, and drive more sales through their websites.
Now, this doesn’t have to cost you a fortune, but it is a valuable commodity to have if you’re using your website as a shop window or encouraging people to pick up the phone and make an inquiry. There are a number of factors to think about when trying to push your google rankings up, and a good place to start is by looking at your keywords.
Now what the hell are keywords you might ask?
Well, put simply, keywords are terms and buzzwords that a desired audience is likely to type into Google when conducting a search, and by optimising your site to be as keyword efficient as possible, the more likely traffic will be driven there. As a business owner with a website, you want your keywords to be as relevant as possible so the chances of consumers coming across you are increased.
If we get down to the bare bones of keywording, the 2 most fundamentally important areas to look at are the title (main title you see on a site on Google search page) and the meta description (the longer description under that main title). Making sure these 2 key areas are as targeted as possible, can over time, strongly affect where you might sit on the Google search engine.
The number of characters you use for these titles and descriptions are also important, as if they’re too long they will be truncated by google bots, cutting out key information and making it look less professional (you only get 1 first impression). Confusingly, this doesn’t come down to the number of characters used, but rather the number of pixels within a given space that decides if a title or description is shortened.
A good place to start is by making a list of key topics that you think are important to your business, and from there you can start putting words and phrases together that will most likely draw people in. One of the best ways to do this is to think like a customer, and what you would write if you were looking for the same thing.
Also, be sneaky, what keywords are your competitors using and what sets them ahead of the pack?
Once you’ve established what their keywords and phrases are and why they work, you can then elaborate on them, and start applying them to your own website as well as expanding on keywords that you know already drive traffic to your site.
Make sure to utilize highly relevant words that have minimal competition, as by doing so you could see more traffic finding its way to your site due to the lack of others using the same language and terminology as you are.
Lastly, you also have your long-tail keywords, which are longer, more specific keyword phrases that people tend to use when they’re approaching the end of their search and now showing buying signals. Put simply, a person’s behaviour changes when a decision is close to being made, and this is where a more detailed and focused approach to finding what they’re looking for will happen. If used properly, long-tail keywords can have a very positive impact!
In summary, titles and meta descriptions shouldn’t stop at your home, services and contact pages, it’s also hugely beneficial to do this for every single image and blog post (if you have a blog page) on your site to further increase your reach in the digital landscape.
Keywords are one of many areas of SEO, however they are a big one, and if well done, you could massively increase your presence and visibility online, and if done badly, it could mean having next to no presence or visibility at all!
If none of this made sense, we here at hello@mightandmain.com are happy to chat you through it over a coffee, and explain how we can help you and your business grow without developing a migraine.
