This week we will discuss the five tips that will help you rank high on search engines.
1.Build a great website that focuses on the needs of visitors
Getting high in the search results is only part of your marketing strategy. When a prospect clicks through to your site, you only have a few seconds to get their attention. That is the time in which they assess whether your website contains the information they were looking for. Make sure that your slogan makes clear in one sentence what your unique selling point is. What do potential customers really need to be at your office?
2. Update your site regularly with useful and compelling content
Google likes sites that regularly add new content, such as blog posts. This can certainly improve your search results. However, this can take several months. What does ‘regular’ mean? Here, opinions differ: from three times a week to once a month. It will be somewhere in the middle. Choose at least a frequency that you can keep track of. Ideal topics are common questions from your customers.
How long does the blog have to be?
Some experts say that 1,000 words is ideal, but do not make a blog for the length alone. The most important thing is that your blogs answer the questions of your visitors. Translate your expertise into easily readable and manageable blogs. End every blog post with a ‘call to action’. Tell readers what they can do: email for an appointment, fill out a form or download a file. In every blog post it must be clear what the next step must be.
3. Add relevant keywords
Make sure that every page of your website contains relevant keywords. For accounting firms the most important keywords are quite clear: accountant, bookkeeping, tax, audit, et cetera. Also mention unusual specialties provided by your company. Your geographical location is also an important search term. The most important combinations of keywords are ideally in the title, url and then appear again in the text. Do not spam with keywords. That can result in penalty points. Never sacrifice the legibility of an article to be able to use search terms. Quality always stands at 1.
4. Add search terms to page titles and descriptions
Page titles and descriptions are embedded in the code for your website. The page title is the clickable link that appears in the search results. The description is the short sentence that follows. Including keywords in your page titles, Google helps users find out what the page is about. Page titles and descriptions are what is retrieved when a page is shared on social media.
Provide titles and descriptions that cover the topic, contain relevant keywords and encourage them to click on them. Each page of your website must have a unique title. Titles are limited to 70 to 71 characters, including spaces. Descriptions can contain a maximum of 156 characters. You may need your webmaster to help you with this if you want to make changes.
5. Do not forget social media
Google may or may not use links from Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to determine the authority of a website. Some Google sources say yes and others do not. But social media is in any case fundamental to every company, because people use it in their evaluation of companies. If they want to know more about your office, they will look up your profile on social media.
To organize this as efficiently as possible, it is useful to look at which channel most prospects find themselves and spend most of their time there. Each channel has its own character, so it is advisable to tailor your message for each channel. Social media is also very visual, so it is strongly recommended to add a picture to each blog post.
The above ideas are not only good for Google, but also provide a better user experience for visitors to your site. A beautiful, easy-to-navigate website contributes to your image as a reliable and expert partner for your customers.