DOMINATE

A SMALL BUSINESS OWNERSGUIDE TO RANKING HIGH IN

WRITTEN BY GLEN HODDINOTTCERTIFIED NERD & CEO @ STRATEGICSTARTUP .COM

What would a first page Google ranking do for your business?

GoogleWITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK

Y O U R M A R K E T

AN INTRODUCTION TO SEOWhile SEO (search engineoptimization) can be a powerful asset,bringing free, organic traffic to yourwebsite on a regular basis, it’s not allit’s cracked up to be.

A lot of SEO companies will try to tellyou that SEO will completelyrevolutionize your business, bringingyou more customers than you canpossibly handle, and all for FREE! Butthat is simply not the case.

Is SEO something that you shouldconcern yourself with? Yes. Is itsomething that you should pay tens ofthousands of dollars for? No. EffectiveSEO requires a few very simple stepsdone consistently over an extendedperiod of time.

If you follow those steps, eventuallyyou will see results and you mighteven get yourself a top ranking onGoogle.

Unfortunately, there are is a lot ofmisinformation out there when itcomes to SEO, primarily from thoseSEO companies trying to make itsound more complicated than it reallyis so that they can charge you moremoney.

That’s why I’ve created this simple,free guide to dominating your localsearch engine results. Do these thingsconsistently and in 6-12 months,maybe even sooner, you are going tonotice dramatic changes in yourwebsites search engine ranking andmost likely, more customers cominginto your business.

RESPONSIVE DESIGNWHAT IS IT? MOBILE VS RESPONSIVE

The first step to ensuring thatyour website ranks well inGoogle is to ensure that you havewhat is called a “responsivedesign”.

This means that regardless of thescreen size of the device yourwebsite is being viewed on, thewebsites content will resize andthe layout will adjust itselfaccordingly so that all of thecontent not only fits on thescreen, but is easily viewable anduser friendly.

To read more about how having amobile responsive websiteimpacts your ranking in thesearch engines, click the linkbelow,

Not so very long ago there werestandard desktop websites, andthen there were mobilewebsites. Basically, in order tohave your site optimized formobile you needed to developtwo completely differentwebsites.

These days, responsive designallows you to create just onewebsite but have the content becustomized depending on thescreen size it is being viewed on. This is a much better approachas cell phones, tablets, laptops,and desktops all come in allshapes and sizes, leaving far toomuch variation for any designerto be able to effectively create awebsite that would look good onall of them. https://www.strategicstartup.co

m/am-i-mobile-responsive/

WHY DOES IT MATTER?So why is a mobile responsive website important for search engine rankings?

Well in 2015 Google implemented search engine penalties for any websitethat was not mobile responsive. See, Google serves up websites in the searchresults based on a complex algorithm (which is basically an insanelycomplicated match equation) that tells the search engine what websites itthinks is most relevant to the words you entered in the search box.

If you are browsing from a mobile device (which more than 51% of all internetusers are doing), then Google will make sure that it gives preference towebsites that are mobile responsive. So if your website is not mobileresponsive, even if your content or service is highly relevant to what is beingsearched for, Google might not show it in the results. Instead they will favourthose sites that ARE mobile friendly.

Lesson? Mobile responsive websites are key to capturing the attention andinterest of over 51% of all potential customers. That means that if you werejust to switch from non-mobile friendly to a mobile responsive site, you couldpotentially reach nearly 100% more customers! If that doesn’t convince you togo mobile I don’t know what will…

One of the best ways to getyour business ranked highin Google is to ensure that

you are obtaining highquality reviews from

customers. There are acouple of good ways to do

this.

The best way to get your website to the top of the first page of Google is to first, getyour business a Google+ business page. You can learn more about how to do thisby visiting the link below, or simply scanning the QR code and it will take youdirectly to the page.

REVIEWS

GOOGLE+ REVIEWS

Once you have a verified Google+ business page, the next step is to get reviews. If youvisit the above website address I give you a couple of good ideas for obtaining goodquality reviews from happy customers. You can add a link to the review box in youremail signature, as well as include it in all “Thank You” emails to customers.

If customers don’t leave you a review right away, try to follow up with them at least 1-2more times within 2-3 weeks after the transaction has been completed. You don’twant to wait too long and you don’t want to come across as pushy or annoying or yourun the risk of getting less than a 5 Star rating.

Most importantly, you want to ensure that you are ending every transaction with ahappy customer! In addition to using your Google+ page for gathering reviews, you willalso want to publish content on that page regularly. If you have a blog on your website,make sure that you are always sharing your blog posts to that Google+ page. If youmake videos for You Tube, share them on Google+ too!

The idea is to show Google that you are actually engaged in providing good, valuablecontent on those pages, which increases your relevancy score in Googles algorithmand therefore makes it more likely that Google will show your page higher in thesearch engines than less active pages.

https://www.strategicstartup.com/google-plus

Another good tool is a Facebook Business Page. Facebook has the largest user base ofany social media platform in the world. Pretty much everyone and their dog is on it atthis point, so you should be to if you want to be able to reach as many of your potentialcustomers as possible. Once you have a Facebook Business Page you are going towant to verify that page with Facebook. I show you how to do that in a video which youcan access at the below URL.

FACEBOOK REVIEWS

Since Facebook is generally a far more active and engaged platform than Google, thereis a higher probability of you obtaining reviews from happy customers. While thiswon’t give you the same “boost” in the search engines as Google reviews will, it stillimproves the relevancy score of your Facebook page and increases your brandsexposure in overall search results.

https://www.strategicstartup.com/facebook-reviews

PRO TIPIt's a good idea to verify your Facebook Business Page so that Facebook, and

the search engines, recognize it as a real business.

You can do this by accessing the "Settings" tab on your Facebook Page,,selecting "General" from the left menu, and then following the instructions

under "Page Verification".

If you own a business that’s content marketing material would translatewell into video, such as a bakery or a deck contractor, you might want tothink about getting in front of the camera.

While getting started doing video can be stressful, it can have hugebenefits for your businesses search engine ranking to post consistentvideo content to You Tube.

Believe it or not, You Tube is the world’s second largest search enginebehind Google, and since You Tube is owned by Google, this means thatthe content is heavily favoured in Googles search results.

So while creating videos can at first seem daunting and scary, if gettingover that initial fear can get you more business, well it just might be worthgetting good at.

YOU TUBE

https://www.strategicstartup.com/youtube

On page search engine optimization is the next step to ensuring that yourwebsite has the best possible chance of making its way to the first page ofGoogle.

Unless you are pretty techy and able to easily work on your own website,this might be a good job for your web designer

(Or us, hint hint, wink wink, nudge…)

If you want to read more about how exactly on page SEO works you canread an article I published that details the process. Here’s the link,

ON PAGE SEO IS THE NEXT STEP

ON PAGE SEO

Basically the process includes a couple of seemingly simplebut subtly complex steps.

• Content Creation

• Keyword Research

https://www.strategicstartup.com/seo

It is usually a good idea to write your content before you do any keywordresearch at all. The reason for this is that if you do your keyword researchfirst, your subconscious is going to be quietly looking for every single spotthat it can plug those key words and phrases into. This will mess with theflow of your writing and make it seem unnatural and disjointed.

Instead, just create your written content as if you were speaking toanother person face to face regarding the topic. Imagine you are talking tosomeone who does not know anything about the topic and then write inthe same way that you would explain it were you sitting down havingcoffee with that person. This will create a much more natural flow and willengage readers more than keyword plugging.

If nobody wants to read the content on your site, it really doesn’t matterhow high you rank in Google. . . . .

ON PAGE SEOCONTENT CREATION

KEYWORD RESEARCH

This is where we find the “keywords” that people are typing into thesearch engines when they are looking for the product, service orinformation that you offer.

Using one of Google’s free tools (which I cover in this post if you missed theabove link) we can review commonly searched words and phrases, andthen use those same words and phrases to match our content to thosesearch queries.

Chances are, if you followed the instructions in the last step, you aren’tgoing to have to alter your content very much as you will likely find thatmany of the key words and phrases are already in there.

Backlinks are basically links from other web addresses that link back to apage on your website.

So if I were to write a blog post, reference your website, and then provide alink that took the reader to a page on your site, that’s a backlink. These aregood for your websites SEO (search engine optimization) because they tellGoogle that you have good quality, relevant content on your site thatpeople like.

If someone is willing to link to it, it must be pretty damn good. Nowunfortunately spammers got wind of this years ago and went to town,leaving spam comments and creating “fake” websites plugged full ofbacklinks all over the web.

But we’re smarter than that.

Instead, just make sure that you are sharing your content on some of themajor social media channels (as we discussed previously) and eventuallyyou will build up a healthy supply of links back to your site from peopleengaging with and sharing your content.

The better it is, the more it will get shared, and the more relevant backlinksit will generate.

ON PAGE SEOBUILD BACKLINKS

As I mentioned before, SEO does not have to be a complex or scary topic,and while getting a top rank on Google may not change your life overnight,it can have big benefits to your bottom line when integrated with athorough and strategic marketing plan.

One of the beauties of capturing one of those top spots in Google is thatyou don’t have to “convert” cold prospects into warm leads. Instead youput yourself in a position where warm leads are going to prequalifythemselves by seeking you out.

You don’t have to pay for advertising, create and maintain a complexmarketing funnel, or sell these people hard. In most cases they will seekyou out because they have a problem they know you can solve and all youhave to do is just be there to solve their problem for them.

So if getting your businesses website to the first page of Google hasseemed like an impossible task up until now, or one that would cost youthousands of dollars, trust me, it’s not, and it doesn’t have to.

Just follow the steps outlined in this guide and before you know it you’ll becrushing the competition online.

Until next time,

Cheers

Glen HoddinottDigital Nerd & CEO @ Strategic Startup

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHERSUMMARY

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