As I write the answer to this question, some startegies may have just expired and become out-dated. Please note that the field of Social Media Marketing, Inbound Marketing or Internet Marketing evolves fast and hard with the introduction of new social media platforms and the way people interact with the internet. Does that mean it’s impossible to start? -Absolutely not!
During the first edition of Ask Me Tuesday, Julia Renfro, boldly asked “What is the most effective strategy to get higher results from Google Search?”.
I’d like to first re-phrase that question, as there is too much room for interpretation.
What is the most effective strategy to get listed higher (rank higher) in Google’s Natural Search Results?
Natural Search Results are the results appearing under/after the sponsored results on the Search Engine Results Page, and the higher you rank, the closer you are to the top ten search results on the first page, the more likely it is you will get the traffic that converts into sales. There is one caveat: Your content needs to be exactly what the visitor is looking for. (Think of all the times you’ve quickly clicked “Back”, after “finding” the right page, only to find that the information is not exactly what you were looking for.)
That brings us to srategy numero UNO: GREAT CONTENT…
- …says what you really do: You’re pages need to say exactly what you do, when you do it, where you do it, how you do it and why you do it. In no uncertain terms. Which means, if you make, install, finish, repair and maintain cabinets on Aruba in Santa Cruz, with locally sourced wood and accept custom orders, work 6 days a week, your pages need to basically say this in the text, titles, links and meta-data. Also, if you have secondary services, make dedicated pages per service, keep each page on topic, to facilitate navigation.
- … is easy to read: People will search for words that they use every day. There is a very big difference between: target-audience friendly content and peer-to-peer relevant industry jargon (the latter is a good example of industry jargon) – and – information that your clients need and information that is at the level of other industry experts. That brings us to the next point…
- … is created with the client in mind: Make sure you are writing for the right audience. Is your website aimed at drawing new B2B customers or B2C? Are you aiming at the consumer level client or the educated nearly expert client? Why do they need to find you? Once you define in very clear terms who your client is, your target audience, you can further shape your content for that.
- … engages: Aside from being easy to read, make content that is engaging, that connects with your future client, the new visitor. Make it so that they get a good mental picture of how you solve their problem, why you do this and what the product is. Another way to engage is making it easy to contact you, ask you a question or request instant support. Less obvious ways of engaging are by making contact information easy to see right above the fold (there I go again with jargon), displaying alternate ways they can contact you like Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
- … is consistent and relevant: Keep your message consistent through-out your website, but also publish consistently. Search engines have a knack for new, fresh information, and will post newer more relevant content higher. Look at your own online behavior, you are likely very much interested in the latest updates, postst and newsletters. What does your website say to the customer if the last update is 2 years old? – Likely that you may be out of business, no longer active or unreachable.
Another important strategy is the way your website is developed, after you have chosen how it should look, your site needs to have the right functions active and ready to go before it can yield you the results you want.
Website development that works for YOU
- Your website need to be “readable’ to the search engine, so that it is correctly indexed and found with the keywords your target audience will be looking for.
- Your links, page titles, meta-data and image descriptions should facilitate the indexing process in such a way that you are “read” by the spiders that read online content. That simply means that you should not have a flash-only website, use link structures that are semantic, and create indexable sitemaps.
- Easy to use blog-platform: Update your website regularly through a blog, allow visitors to post comments and ask questions. Once you have a blog up and running you can really hone the power of content even further.