Whatever business you’re doing today, a considerable number of your potential customers use search engines.
They use them to find the right businesses to provide solutions to their problems. How would you rate your visibility on search engines? Does your business appear for the right search terms? If it doesn’t, you’ve been losing many potential customers and revenue.
But you can change that in 2019. Your business website can show up for the terms your potential customers are searching for. What are 5 ways to achieve this?
5 Ways to Improve Your Visibility on Search Engines
1. Carry Out Keyword Research
If you’re ranking for terms that potential customers are not searching for, then the search engine traffic will be pretty useless. The main point of ranking on search engines is to rank for keywords that a customer is likely to use.
To improve your visibility on search engines for the right words, you need to consider user intent and then carry out keyword research. User intent is simply the aim of the search engine user when carrying out a search. For instance, someone who searches “buy winter shoes in Chicago” is probably looking to buy a winter shoe. If you sell winter shoes in Chicago, you should target such a keyword.
Keyword research will give you more details about your target keywords and help you to find more keywords that potential customers are searching for. The two major details to look out for are:
- Search volume
- Competition
The ideal keywords to target are those with high search volumes but low competition. That is, many people search for those words but not many authoritative websites rank for them. To carry out effective keyword research, you can use any of tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, CognitiveSEO, Keywordtool.io, Ubersuggest, and others.
2. Write Content That Solves User’s Problems
According to Google search quality guidelines, the search engine will only rank pages with high-quality main content at the top of its search rankings. One of the main determinants of a quality page is being able to solve search users’ problems.
Google and other search engines can only remain relevant if they provide results that solve users’ problems or provide the information they’re looking for. If your website provides this type of content, then it will rank high on search engines.
While writing content for your website, you need to ask why a visitor will read your post. What problems are they looking to solve? You need to provide solutions to these problems in your post. Generally, your post should be long enough to solve the user’s problem in detail.
3. Make Your Website Mobile Responsive
Mobile devices are the major way people access the internet today. About 60 percent of Google searches are done on mobile devices. This makes mobile devices critical to your visibility on search engines.
This is one of the reasons Google introduced the mobile-first indexing. This means the mobile version of your website will be indexed on Google before the desktop version. If you have a poor mobile website, the chance of ranking high for a search term reduces.
One way to check if your website is mobile responsive is to use the Google Mobile-friendly test tool. This will show you your website’s mobile-friendliness. Generally, using a mobile responsive theme, rather than having a separate mobile version, will make your website mobile-friendly.
4. Target Local Searchers
If you run a local business, you need to know that potential customers in your locality use search engines before making their purchase decisions. These search engine users are vital to your business as most of them are ready to do business within a short period of time.
As a local business, you should show up in Google local map pack and other local searches. Two important steps to take to improve your local search rankings are:
- Add your business details to local listings
- Encourage reviews
One way to prove to search engines that you run a local business is to appear in Google My Business and other local listings. Search engines are able to confirm that you’re a real local business with your appearance on many local listings. In fact, research shows that business websites that rank in the top 3 of local searches have an average of 85 local citations.
Another way to improve your local search is through reviews. People want to know what your past customers think about your business before they spend their hard earned money. Many customers make their decisions based on what they see in reviews. A study found that 85 percent of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. You should encourage your customers to post reviews on your local listing pages.
5. Gain Backlinks to Your Website
Backlinks are links to your website from external websites. They’re one of the most important ranking signals. Google search quality analyst Andrey Lipattsev claims that backlinks are one of the 3 most important Google ranking factors.
But gaining backlinks to your website is easier said than done. Some of the activities you need to carry out to get backlinks to your website are:
- Guest posting on other websites to reach a wider audience.
- Participating in local events to gain links from local event reporters.
- Answering questions in forums and adding links to your relevant website pages that answer those questions.
- Appearing on podcasts.
Improving your visibility on search engines is not rocket science. All you have to do is take steps that put you ahead of your competition. Try out these 5 tips today to boost your search rankings in 2019.