Answers to One of Life’s Great Mysteries

Have you ever found yourself searching for… well… yourself? Have you spent time pondering who you are and why you are, and what you can do to change what you find in these searches, only to realize that change is elusive, or that changing one part only further complicates the picture.

These self-evaluations don’t have to be exercises in futility…

Does this all sound a little heavy? I’m about to let you off the hook…

Look at all of this through the lens of your business and, in particular, your web presence. There comes a point in every business that the mysterious, vague and often expensive phrase “SEO” comes bubbling to the surface.

You find yourself at the altar of the almighty Google with a humble search, hoping to find yourself worthy in their all-knowing eyes…

You type, “Everywhere, USA AC Repair”… Hit search…

Gulp.

You see two guys that have been in business for 3 days each, and your largest competitor ranked at the very top. You’re nowhere to be found on page 1… Page 2? Nada.

Stuck on page 3 of the results, between “ABC Air” (who went out of business in 2006) and Bob Villa is your company. You might as well be on the moon.

Nobody is going to find you, and nobody is going to care.

Does that sound extreme? Don’t take my word for it. According to Google, 95% of all clicks go to links on the first page of a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Only 5% make it to page 2 or later.

Ok, so now that we’ve established that you are effectively invisible, what do you do about it?

My initial recommendation would be to conduct an SEO audit. This process will do several things for you. It will allow you to take inventory on your SERP rankings and also give you bench marks to track your (hopefully improving) results going forward.

This audit will also measure things that you likely haven’t ever thought of, including the load times of your pages, relevant backlinks, canonicals (helps prevent duplicate content issues), images, internal linking, etc., etc., etc.… This is the website equivalent of a full check-up with your doctor, and afterwards you will be given a prescription. It might be easy, and it might be a complete mess that is going take time ($), effort ($) and patience to correct.

Once you have your audit completed and you’ve committed to fixing this problem, what next?

You’ve got two options: have somebody on your internal team take charge and ownership of these rankings, or you find a vendor that can help you navigate these sometimes-murky waters. Either route you choose, there are some foundational principles that you should follow.

1. Relevant content will always be critical. This doesn’t mean pumping in pages on your site that read like the 43rd page of an installation manual for a mini split. This is content that has a good split of keywords and useful content.
2. Links are important. Links to your site from other sources is always loved by Google. The easiest method to use is your own Social Media pages. Any content you put on Facebook can/should link back to your main site. There are other benefits of this, but for today’s lesson, we will just appreciate the SEO benefits.
3. Video is AWESOME! If you have good video content on your site, Google shows you love. Pictures are ok, but video is viewed as a much more active media.
4. Properly tag content. This includes making sure that your pages are properly titled and any pictures have accurate and relevant descriptions included when they are uploaded. If you don’t do this, you are costing yourself rank.
5. Frequency is important. Your website is your digital store front. If you never change content or add content, Google starts to look at that website as a dusty old building with the windows boarded-up. Google doesn’t want to send traffic to a dusty, old, boarded-up website. Make sure that Google knows you’re home.
6. You might have to pay to play. Organic search is great, but as we’ve established, there isn’t a magic bullet to fix it. In the meantime, Google will be able to place you at the top of the listings for specific search terms, for a fee of course, and sometimes those fees can be quite high.
7. Claim your local listing. If you haven’t already done this, do it immediately. If you’re not sure if you’ve done it, Google your company and notice the box on the right-hand side of your display. This will likely contain an image or two, your address, your website and contact information. If it also asks, “Do you own this business?” you need to immediately respond and take ownership of that listing. It is an easy process, though not very quick as Google (the king of online) will be sending you a good, old-fashioned, postcard to the physical address listed so that you can confirm information.

The items listed above are important, but keep in mind this list isn’t exhaustive, nor is it static. Things can and will change quickly in the online marketing world, and we will too. As a matter of fact, a huge trend in search engine optimization has already emerged, and that trend is search via voice command.

What is that?

This is the act of a consumer conducting a search completely by voice and interacting with a digital assistant of some sort. The two most common digital assistants are Siri (Apple) and Alexa (Amazon), though there are many others, and it is capable to search directly into Google via voice. It is estimated that 50% of all searches will be conducted via voice before 2020 and nearly $10 Billion in revenue will come directly from voice purchases.

So, what does this mean?

This means that your content mustn’t only be optimized for standard search; it must also be strong in voice search optimization. Typically, a keyword or keyword string is relatively short. A word or two, maybe three. With voice, those terms are much longer.

Example:

A prospect may manually search “AC Repair” and that’d be that. With a voice search, the same customer may ask Siri, “Hey Siri, what is the best ac repair company in my area?” Those two searches will likely yield completely different results. If you are optimized for the first and not the second, you will likely miss the prospect completely and never know it.

If you take anything away from this article, take this: The online world (and marketing in general) is always evolving, and you need to take time and put effort into understanding it, or at the very least work with somebody who understands it.

We work with contractors everyday in developing web marketing strategies. If you feel lost, not sure where to start or just want a second opinion, take a few moments and submit this short 10-question survey, and one of our experts will reach out to walk through your individual situation.

As always, we are here to help. Have fun and happy marketing!