Getting on page one of search results is really what it’s all about, isn’t it? About 60% of website traffic for a business name comes from search engines. Let’s talk about what kinds of content we want to show up on page one. In today’s multi-dimensional online world, there are several bases to cover. Here are eight suggestions for getting your brand displayed on page one.
Research. The first step is to get a feel for the kind of presence your brand currently has. Do a search for “(brand name)” and “(brand name) review,” check the first two pages and look at what you find. In many cases, you’ll find there is already some coverage about you. See what’s being talked about, highlight the positive items, visit those pages and keep the URLs handy for reference.
Reviews. Many people looking for Mark’s SEO Shop will simply type “Mark’s SEO Shop” into their choice of search engine and hopefully see MarksSeoShop.com as the first result. But that’s just part of the story, at least concerning Google and its various platforms. Others may search for “Marks’s SEO Shop reviews.” Any reviews on the business will show under the Reviews section, which is on the right side of the Google search results page, for example. Google now automatically understands reviews and will be providing direct links to review websites as well. So you should make sure your business is included in as many relevant review sources as possible.
Social Media. Next you want to make sure you have a solid social media strategy in place. First, get an account at Twitter, Google+, Facebook and YouTube or whichever of these are relevant to your business. These media services are easy to tie into your brand for searches and over time will generate followers that you can reach easily.
Industry Sources. Look for affiliations that are industry relevant. For example, for Mark’s SEO Shop, it would be relevant to be mentioned at the IMA blog. Getting a profile will help as well by enabling you to learn more about what other people in your industry are doing and for following industry trends.
Press Releases. Place announcements about your business on external sources. Press release websites are great for establishing brand authority via current news and for building long-term brand presence. They are also easy to get ranked on search engines and will create positive mentions for your business.
External Blogs. Resources like WordPress or Squidoo are free and make it easy to create and maintain a blog to share timely and relevant information. These properties are also easy to get ranked on search engines and can provide important feedback from your audience. If you have reviews from your customers, put them up on these websites after you’ve obtained permission.
Internal Blogs. If you plan to host a blog on your work domain, create it with a subdomain identity like blog.domain.com or domain.com/blog/ so updates go into a fixed area of your website and you can control the look and feel. Installing and running WordPress is a breeze and should be easy for you to manage.
Interlinking. Now that you have a number of web properties out there, make sure you link them to each other. It’s very simple to link up social media profiles to help you gain trust and relevance from the interplay between them. Whenever you read about news in your industry, make a comment and drop in a link back to your websites to generate visitors and search engine importance.
This is a dynamic process. Keep up with the linking and property creation for your websites, and you’ll have page #1 for your business dominated easily.