Every business owner dreams of making it big, and one of the steps to fulfill that dream is to make themselves known to the world. There are various ways to do this, such as advertising on social media pages, giving out promos and free samples, reaching out to someone you know who may need your services, and the most important of all, getting started on SEO and content marketing.
What is SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process where you customize your website to make it more attractive for a search engine to bring your website as a top result in searches relative to your website or business and gain traffic.
Here’s an example: You have a cellphone repair business. But how do someone near you who needs such services will be able to find you? Their natural response would be to go to Google and search for nearby cellphone repair services. The question is: Do you think Google will be able to find you and present it as a top result? If Google can’t find you, then nobody else can.
How do you get found on Google then?
Here are a few simple steps on how to get found on Google:
1. Submit Your Website to Google
How to Get Found on Google? Maybe you thought that creating your website or business page is all you need to do, and then you’ll be visible to anyone who uses a search engine to find you.
The thing is, there are many other websites out there that might be providing the very same services you offer, and if they already did this step, then it is more than likely that those websites will appear immediately on search engines compared to yours.
There are two ways you can do to get the same thing: 1. Use Google Search Console and submit your website’s updated sitemap and 2. Use Google’s “ping” services to submit your sitemap URL. You don’t have to worry about any cost because both of these options are entirely free. Within seconds, your website will be indexed already.
Note that if it is the first time you are submitting a website, you need to verify it within Google Search Console first and then submit your sitemap right here. If you already have an existing website and need to publish new pages, you can submit it to Google to index those pages and rank them. Or you could send an updated sitemap to Google or try the Fetch as Google option.
2. Learn to Research Keywords
Google uses around 200 criteria to index billions of websites and brings them up within a matter of seconds to relevant searches. One of the criteria used is keywords. Google looks at the written content, titles, and meta tags in your website and brings your website up as a result whenever someone searches or matches the keywords in your website in their search.
It is essential to make sure that your website contains keywords relevant to the product, services, or content that your website is promoting. Imagine having a website about selling plants, yet not a single thing about plants is on your website? Don’t be surprised when Google won’t bring your website up when someone searches’ plants for sale.
However, you mustn’t just guess about what keywords to use. Your customers are searching for things, and it’s important to know what they’re searching for. Now, you may be reasonably confident that you understand what lingo they’re using, but it isn’t quite that simple. The words and phrases you know are probably used frequently and, for this reason, the competition for ranking atop Google is probably fierce. If your website is new and doesn’t have the domain authority necessary to compete, you will probably not see much success with your SE
Therefore, keyword research is crucial! If the keyword research isn’t done, there is no way of knowing precisely what the competition is.
Furthermore, researching keywords with high volume and low competition forces you to think outside of the box, which will cause you to find more great keywords. You may even see industry terms that you didn’t realize existed…or at least not used that way or said that way, which may open a gold mine of possibilities (and traffic!).
So, you’re probably thinking, “how do I research keywords?” We use a convenient tool showing monthly search volume, competition level, and overall keyword difficulty. You can get started with this tool by typing your keyword in the box below:
3. Optimize for RankBrain
Nowadays, it is not enough to have content on your website. It’s wise that you be intelligent and creative whenever you create your content that will attract your readers or customers and the search engine core, such as RankBrain , Google’s AI that handles the search results by understanding what people are trying to search for and delivering the best results to them. Your job is to make it easier for RankBrain to find your website when a particular query is being searched. This is where quality content that contains relevant keywords about your product or services becomes essential. This is how Google will find you.
4. Use an SEO Analysis Tool
There are billions of websites out there; it is not enough that Google can find you; you must also make an effort that your website comes up within the top results. But how can you improve your website’s rank among billions of others? How can you make it stand out? The key here is using an SEO Analysis Tool.
SEO Analysis is a report made by a website or a plug-in by checking how your website ranks in search engines and what you can do to improve this ranking. It runs an analysis on your website to contain duplicated content, URLs and links within your website, and anything else that prevents your website from being in the top results in search engines.
Fret not because SEO Analysis Tools are readily available, and they will also give you suggestions on how to improve your website’s ranking. For WordPress sites, you can try to use RankMath, and for non- WordPress sites, you can check out MySiteAuditor.com .
5. Add Your Website to Local Directories
Isn’t it natural to target the people near you when running a business or have a service to offer? It is, therefore, a must that you must let the search engines and your visitors know where you are located by giving out your complete address, contact number, and even a map to your location. You can also include keywords about your city that can improve your search visibility. You can do all of this by optimizing your Google My Business Page.
6. Ensure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly
People are always on the move, and not everyone has the time to sit down and open their computers or even own one. Almost all people in the world have their cellphone, which are their go-to when they need something. As such, make sure that your website can be comfortably accessed or viewed on mobile. Not only will it increase your favorability to appear in top results, but it will also increase your favorability to your visitors as they can access your website easily wherever they are. Google already stated that its algorithm favors mobile-friendly sites over desktop ones.
7. Learn How to Earn Backlinks
Backlinks are links in your website or content that will lead anyone who clicks it to another website. Backlinks are also called inbound links, oneway links, or incoming links. Google considers backlinks as a trust signal that shows your site is trustworthy. Your goal here is to have your website gain backlinks in other websites; the more there are, the more upvotes you’ll get, and the more votes you’ll get, the higher your ranking in Google will be. Earning a backlink in another website means that website is vouching that your website is valuable, trustworthy, and a must-see.
Backlinks are vital to your website’s success as it is one of the top three that Google uses as their most crucial search engine ranking factors. Keep in mind that you want to get good links, preferably from websites that match your industry or niche, as this signals to Google that your links are relevant. Here is an excellent resource from Backlinko on creating backlinks.
All of these steps will take time, but if you are determined to reach that success you have dreamed of, take these steps now as the first part of your journey. It would help if you also kept an eye out for the latest trends in SEO optimization and marketing strategies so that you are up-to-date on how to improve or maintain your website’s visibility and reach. Success will come with time, but it won’t come to you by doing anything.
If you are looking for more education and training on SEO and other entrepreneurial and business topics, check out our Business Resources section.
