Conducting online research before buying is common today. Consumers use search engines to find, review, and compare products and services to ensure they are making the best purchase decision.
What this means for your business is that building an online presence so your potential customers can find you is key to building your brand awareness and getting them to consider your products and services.
While there are many search engines available for consumers to do their research, Google dominates the search market with 93.37% market share as of February 2023 (GS Statcounter, 2023). Google processes 99,000 searches every second and 8.5 billion searches a day representing an enormous business opportunity.
However, that opportunity is not evenly distributed. When a user conducts a search on Google, it populates the SERP with the most relevant listings at the top of the page and Backlinko found that the top three results on the SERP (search engine results page) get more than half of all clicks.
Therefore, ranking high on Google not only boosts your brand visibility to potential customers, it also positions your brand as an authority in your field. Furthermore, the high traffic to your website can help your business generate leads and drive sales.
So How Do You Rank High on Google?
You can follow guidelines set by Google to improve your website performance on search and this process is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The guideline is ultimately geared towards bringing value to Google users.
However, SEO is a long term game which requires consistent effort to achieve and maintain results. It is also important to note the results you achieve will largely be determined by the resources and technical knowledge you have at your disposal and who you’re competing against.
Therefore, the goal is to selectively compete for queries with reasonable demand against evenly matched competitors where the return on investment is probable. Evaluating search demand and your competitors will be discussed in the next section.
Covering SEO in depth is beyond the scope of this article and does require an understanding of technical knowledge to execute the optimisation process effectively. Nonetheless, this article will give you a generic easy to implement strategy to begin building an online presence for your business.
Building an Online Presence
Define Your Audience
The first step in the process is to identify who might visit your website. If you are already an established business, think about your existing customers. The goal is to get people with similar characteristics on the internet to visit your website.
Identify Keywords and Writing High Quality Content
In this step, you will need to brainstorm a list of topics which can bring value to your potential customers and help them in their buying journey. To do this, engage with your existing customers to learn more about their buying journey and questions they had along the way.
Once you have the list, there are tools such as Google Keyword Planner which can show you the search demand for each topic on your list, identify keywords potential customers use on Google to learn more about these topics and the level of competition. Using these metrics, prioritise topics with reasonable search volume and low competition to begin with.
The next step is to start producing high value content. Google rewards content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Therefore, your content should always bring value to your readers. Use your existing customer knowledge and company expertise to create content you know will bring value to potential customers. The content can be a simple blog post, a case study, an industry report or an infographic.
Learn How To Create People First Content
Another factor Google deems important is user experience on your website. Broadly speaking, the website should be easy to navigate, it should load quickly, and your website design must adapt to different devices. Nearly 60% of all online searches are conducted on mobile devices (GS Statcounter, 2023).
Want To get More Out Of Your Website?
At Content Hive, we design websites around really good content. Our primary focus is to employ effective strategies that elevate your brand’s visibility on Google, so that once you have that beautiful website people can actually find it. When it comes to SEO and optimisation, the content is as important, if not more, than the design of the website.
Looking for a new website? Get a free quote today.
The Key To Good Marketing Is Great Content
Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best and we have a range of month-to-month plans that you can choose from.
If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your content marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book in a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online.
