Google Suite

You know when you search for a company, and their information comes up on the right hand side? That’s all done through something called Google My Business, and if you don’t have one then this is the place to start!

Google My Business is a FREE platform where you can add information about your business so potential customers can easily find how to contact or interact with you. It incorporates the Google Maps & Google reviews meaning you can include opening hours, social posts and maps too, as well as a review section which is great for showing your customer feedback.

 This is the first stepping stone of improving your online presence. It gives you a shot of appearing on a search if someone looks for a product or service that you offer. The key here is to always be active, whether it’s sharing photos or commenting on reviews. If your competitors look inactive and have a total of two 1-star reviews, then the end user is probably more likely to contact you if your profile looks all sparkly and gleaming with info!

ARE YOU MOBILE READY? ARE YOU FAST & SECURE?

Mobile: Wayyyyyy back in 2015, Google announced that they would be prioritising websites that were responsive over those that were not. If you still have to pinch and zoom on your website, it is not responsive. If you’re unsure, you can click here to test.

Secure: Following on from the above and in light of the data handling scandals that have come about in the last few years, Google now wants all websites to be secured. You can do this with an SSL certificate. If you don’t have a secure site, you’ll be punished in search results, as well as having a big notice show up on your website that tells the end user that your website is not safe. Not cool.

Speed: Is there anything more irritating than a slow website? Google thinks that too. And so do your customers! If your site is slow, they are going to leave quicker and by doing this sends negative messages to Google that people aren’t enjoying using your site and will punish your rankings. You can start by doing simple things like reducing your image sizes to help speed it up.

IS YOUR CONTENT ANY GOOD?

Is it relevant and structured? To you it might be, but have you thought about your end-user & Google? Do they know what you’re offering?

Does your website title and headings talk about your service or product? Does it state a problem that you’ll help fix? Think about what the end-user will be typing into the search engine to find you.

Google thrives on data and the more that you are able to offer within your website, the better it will affect it. Ensure that you are adding alt tags when uploading images onto your pages so that Google is able to understand the image better. This leads to the idea of including small descriptions under your products or headings just to elaborate more on your content. Small changes like this will really help to improve your website and allow Google to rank it much higher.

Google analytics is your best friend!

Now we are getting a little more technical. Google Analytics is an essential tool to have as it helps us understand your website in much greater detail that shows us where you are gaining traffic from and how users are navigating through your site. It is just as important to see where the connection breaks off i.e which pages people are not really interested in and end up leaving your website.

Take it as constructive criticism as the intended goal is to get your website optimised and provide customers with the best user experience possible. Another feature that is quite important and seen within google analytics is by including social media icons on your web pages, in particular Facebook. With over half of the population being registered on Facebook, its value is not something to joke around with – this can redirect people to your social media accounts and improve your backlinks as a result.

Authenticity and Authority

Ranking high in Google searches proves quite difficult when you have competitors in your field. This problem only grows when you share similar content, similar images & started around a similar timeframe. Who is more credible in the eyes of Google?

To answer that, you need to make Google think you are a credible source of content, making you a trustworthy website for end-users to visit. There are lots of (very technical) ways to go about doing this, such as creating backlinks etc however we suggest leaving that to a professional SEO company.

However something you can start doing is asking your customers to leave you a Google review! This adds to the authenticity and authority and can bode well for your Google results. If your customers think you are a positive company to work for (via Google reviews) Google will too! Now is a good time to leave reviews for businesses, so ensure you are leaving reviews for businesses you have bought from too!