Create some great content
Writing some great content is the most important thing that you can do online to get more visitors. It will show that you are an expert in your area and that you can be trusted to do a good job. The more content that you can write the better because Google likes to put long in-depth articles at the top of their rankings.
Include the right keywords
People will find your business on the internet by searching for terms in a search engine, so you need to make sure that when they search for what you are providing, you are one of the sites that they see.
For example. if they are searching for a restaurant in Birmingham they may type in “Restaurant Birmingham”. If you own a restaurant in Birmingham, then important keywords for you will be “Restaurant Birmingham” and you need to make sure that this is on your site somewhere, preferably in a prominent place.
The competition may be fierce for the term that you have chosen, but you will hopefully have more luck if you niche down further – so if you have an Italian restaurant your keywords could be “Italian Restaurant Birmingham”.
Make sure you don’t overdo the use of any keywords however. Stuffing lots of keywords into an article is no longer effective, in fact the opposite is true, as it can damage your site and get you banned from the search engines, particularly Google.
Keep a track of all the keywords you have chosen.
Check your meta content
Meta content is a summary of a page, or site, that people will see when they are looking for information on the search engines. You want both the meta title and description to be as an informative and descriptive about your page, or business, as it possibly can be. Make sure that some combination of your keywords are in this description because meta content is one of the best ways for customers to find you.
Put testimonials on your site
It’s very important to have testimonials from previous customers on your website because it will show that you can be trusted to do a good job. If you have no testimonials and are just starting off you could offer some cheap or free work in return for a testimonial. A video testimonial is particularly good to have.
Join Google My Business
The information that you put into a Google My Business page will control what information Google Maps and the Google local search will show about you. You can have a list of all the information about your company on here, allow reviews of your company and interact with your customers. For businesses looking to attract customers in their local area, it’s vital to be on Google Maps.
Get citations/directory links
Citations are mentions of your business on a web directory. This serves two purposes. Firstly, potential customers might find you on these directories. And secondly, each time you get a citation it will provide a link to your site and help to boost your rankings in the search engine results. Make sure you are consistent in the details that you put on the sites. If you don’t have exactly the same wording every time the citations won’t match and you won’t get the benefit of a link boost from that directory.
Ask for reviews
Ask customers if they will write a review for you, particularly on Google My Business. But don’t put up any fake reviews, as they can often be spotted as they don’t look genuine.
Use Social Media
Make sure that you have some Social Media exposure, particularly on Facebook or Twitter. Make a business page on Facebook and put some content up on it. Respond to anyone who posts anything about the content you have put up – the more interaction you have with people, the more likely they are to become customers.
Do some link building
The more links you have, particularly ones related to the business you are in, the more Google will like your website and promote you up the rankings. So ask anyone you know in your area if they will link to your website. And find out who your competitors are getting links from and see if you can get the same links. Writing guest posts for other websites is also a very powerful, although time consuming, way to get good links.
Be mobile friendly
Make sure that your website is fully mobile responsive. This means that your customers who look at your site on a mobile phone will have a much better experience than they would do otherwise. Google is now giving less prominence to any sites that aren’t mobile responsive.
If you’d like us to do any of the jobs above for you please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Find even more information about how to get more customers and our free 27-point checklist for your website here.