It doesn’t matter how shiny your website is, it serves no purpose for your business unless it draws visits from potential customers. While it would be nice if your future clients proactively came to your website to give your their business, this isn’t a common scenario. The best way to generate traffic to your website is to make search engines (like Google and Bing) your best friend.
Over 90% of online experiences begin with a search engine. When your potential client logs on to the world wide web, their first step is visiting Google.com. Next, they’ll type in the product or service they are looking for. Of the results that Google generates for them, your future client will most likely take the following actions:
- About 70% of the time, they’ll skip right past the links that are labeled “Advertisement.”
- One out of every three online users (33%) will select the first link that Google recommends.
- Meanwhile, the second link gets only 18% of the attention.
- Each following link is less likely to be visited. If your website lands on the second page of search results, there’s almost no chance — only a 9% chance to be exact — that it will never see the light of day from any of the customers that you want your website to get attention from.
Basically what we’re saying is, you want Google to love you. How do you do this? We have two words for you: SEO services. SEO services (which stands for “Search Engine Optimization” if you’re counting) is the science of sweet talking the search engine robots who rank websites to get yours highly ranked.
The subject of SEO services is so complicated that there are SEO consultants who dedicate their entire careers to helping businesses like yours improve their search engine ranking. While the best way to make it to the top of the list in Google’s search results is to hire one of the aforementioned SEO consulting firms, here are a few simple ways to improve your website’s search ranking:
- Think multimedia. When your website has a variety of media, Google is far more likely to boost it in the results. For example, if your landing page incorporates a video, Google is actually 500 times more likely to put your webpage on the first page of results. The bottom line is, if your website only has a whole lot of words, Google is going to assume you’re a snooze fest, and won’t suggest it to its clients.
- Content is king. Your website is not a static billboard. If you created your website in 1972 and haven’t updated it since, you can say hello to page two, my friend. Google looks at how often you update your website. Adding engaging content that your visitors interact with is the best way to make your website relevant in Google searches. Consider creating a blog for your website, and make sure you regularly add engaging and interesting content relating to the industry you’re in. (Bonus: include keywords that your potential clients might search when looking for your business.) You might be thinking you don’t have the time or desire to suddenly become a blogger. This is where those SEO firms come in.
- Present a call to action.
When you do get a visitor on your website, you want to keep them interested. One of the key factors that Google uses to calculate your website’s ranking is the “bounce rate.” What the term “bounce rate” means to us non-techies is how often a visitor comes to your page and then immediately leave without following any links. Putting a call to action (such as “contact us!” or “buy now!”) serves two purposes: It makes it simple for customers to take the next step in the path to becoming your client. And when a client clicks on your call to action, it simultaneously improves your bounce rate and gives Google a good reason to recommend you to the next person who is in the neighborhood for your service.
If you take nothing else from this, we hope we’ve driven home the point that SEO services are a critical part of every business’s online marketing strategy.