The whole point of having a website is so that people can find your business, see what great stuff you do or sell and increase your sales. In order for that to work they have to be able to find your business first. There are a few concrete things that you can do to increase the chances that your business will be found.
1) Content
This is so important that I wrote a little blog post all about your website content. The main thing to remember is, if something is not on your website, Google won’t find it. Ask your customers what terms they would use to find your product and make sure you have those terms in your content. It’s also important to remember that you should include location terms in your content.
2) Google Local
Get your business on Google’s own map, along with all your details. Apart from anything else, verifying your business through Google Local helps reassure Google that your business really exists and will help your business to appear in search results. On many Google searches the Google Local search results will come up before the rest of the search results. Even if your business ranks badly in Google, your Google Local listing will still show.
Another advantage of Google Local is that your customers can leave reviews of your business, which is (nearly) always something you want to encourage.
To create a Google Local page for your business go to https://www.google.com/business/
3) Bing Places for Business
Get your business on Bing’s own map, along with all your details. Lots of your customers use a Windows operating system and may not be using Google for all their searches. Ignore Bing at your peril. Instead go to Bing Places for Business and set up a page for your business.
4) Links to Your Site
Links that point to your site from other websites are one of the things that search engines such as Bing and Google use to rank the pages of your website. Whenever the opportunity arises it’s worth creating links to your website. These should include links from social media and local business directories and links from other organisations that you work for or write guest articles or blogs for.
5) Social Media
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin – love them or hate them they count in the world of search engines. It’s worth setting up pages on these sites to make your business more visible on the internet. To help your website to rank better, create articles on your website and link back to them rather than creating the content on social networks.
6) Free Local Business Directories
There are hundreds of them out there. When you’re having a quiet day at work why not look some up and add your details. Start Local, Yelp, Cylex.. There are plenty more. What are you waiting for? Get to it!
7) Something to Remember: Don’t Pay for Free Stuff!
The first steps of making your website visible are all free. At some point you will probably want to start spending money. Do some research, speak with a professional and go into it with your eyes open. Don’t get tricked into signing up with Yellow Pages while you’re trying to get a free account and then sit their wondering how you just spent $1,200! You’d be surprised how often it happens.