OK, so you have your website or a web page. Now what? Are people finding your business online?
The Internet has replaced the Yellow Pages as the place Americans go to find local services. Did you know that more than 9.9 Billion searches take place monthly on Google, Live Search, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines? Even if you don’t sell anything online it is important to have a presence so that when people are doing research they can find out about your business.
Every day more people are using search engines to find local service providers. For example, in April there were 1,900 searches for “Seattle Plumber” and 210 searches for “Tacoma Painter”. When someone conducted this search did they find your business? Let’s talk about the main types of search results:
- Paid
- Organic (or Natural)
- Google 10-Pack
Paid Search. These are the results that appear at the top and the right side of the page (see picture). While people claim they don’t click on advertising, these results helped Google generate $20 billion in revenue last year. So, someone is clicking on these links. The way to get these links is simple: buy them. Or more specifically, bid on them. The highest bidders receive the best spots. More on this in a future post.
Organic Search. These are the results that appear in the center of the page. For instance, if you search for “Seattle Pest Control” you will get results that look like those in the picture. How did Cascade Pest Control get to the top spot? All of the search engines review billions of websites and look for results they think will best answer your question. The exact algorithms they use are closely held secrets but there are a couple of things you can do to improve your “ranking”.
Google claims that the best way to improve your page ranking is to have other “high-quality sites” link to your website. One way to accomplish this is to participate in groups or forums, such as Help Hive, and answer questions about your business category
Ways to improve your Organic Search page rank :
- High-quality links to your site (including from forums such as HelpHive)
- Make sure the title tag of your website includes key terms for your business
- Content laden pages and keyword laden links
For a more detailed description, please see How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google or Rules to Better Google Rankings.
Google 10 Pack: Some people think these are also paid results but they are not. When Google thinks the searcher is looking for a local business it attempts to provide results which list local businesses that best meet the search criteria. Google displays those businesses on a map, and also shows the website and telephone number of the business. The exact process Google uses to select these businesses is unknown, but some keys are to have a Google Local account and to utilize basic search engine optimization such as having keywords about your business in the title, having a Google map on your website, posting customer reviews, and including video.
Seth Cohen is an online marketing expert previously with Spot Runner and Ebay.
Tags: 10-pak, bing local search, google 10-pack, google 10-pak, google local search, google organic search, local search, natural search, online search, organic search, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, yahoo organic search
