Does a website really need online marketing?
Surely once it’s made, and up on the old worldwide web, the
world can see it, so why do you need to do anything else?
Well, the problem lies in the way people find your website. Your website is worth
nothing if it’s not getting visitors, but how can those visitors even get to
your website in the first place?
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| Source: Levelwing Infographic |
In 2013, Levelwing
created an infographic showing that 82% of all internet users use search engines and in reality the percentage is
probably a lot higher by now. This highlights that the vast majority of people
online are turning to Google & co. for answers. And it’s mainly Google, as
they remain the largest of all search engines, with a 65%share of all searches online in December 2012; the rest of the searches
were spread across more than five other search engines, with the second highest
share being a meagre 8.2%.
So if everyone is on Google, your website better be on there
too! It’s worth noting that search engines aren’t the only way your website can
be found, but they are the main way.
How online marketing gets your website on Google
Forget about getting on page 1 of Google for now, the main point of SEO is just to make sure you appear at all in relevant Google search results!
Until you use some aspect of online marketing, which
includes Search Engine Optimisation, your website may as well be sitting in the
corner timidly whispering its content; “Campervan
hire Scotland… We hire out campervans in Scotland…”
Online marketing turns that whisper into a roar.
(Other websites with online marketing strategies are
roaring too,
so yours has to be loudest & unique!)
Online marketing at its core is mainly about making sure
Google (and lesser search engines) can identify what your website is about,
whether it seems trustworthy etc., so that it will know whether or not to pop
it in the results when someone carries out a search.
Once your website is optimised to the point that Google can
very quickly identify who you are, what you do and if you seem like an expert,
then it gets to the point where Google will compare you with all other websites
during each search. This comparison is a major factor in determining your
websites ranking on Google; you have to be better than everyone else!
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| Source: Levelwing Infographic |
Ranking higher in Google for different search terms
So for example, Susie is looking to hire a campervan in Scotland for the summer. She has no idea where to start looking for information, so she turns to Google. The words she chooses to search for will determine what website results she gets now. So if she enters "campervan hire Scotland", she will likely get different results than if she searches for "how do I go on a campervan holiday in Scotland?" It's the same general idea behind the search, but Google is trying to find the closest matching websites to your general idea and the words you use! As you can see below, the number 1 search result changes...
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| "Campervan hire scotland" search - The first result is Highland Campervans |
 |
“how do I go on a campervan
holiday in Scotland?” search - The first result is Visit Scotland
|
The reason behind this is Google places more value in Highland Campervans for the
search term “campervan hire Scotland”,
but it places more value in Visit Scotland for the search term “how do I go on a
campervan holiday in Scotland?”
Looking at this from an online marketing perspective, it
looks like Highland Campervans has been optimised for “campervan hire Scotland”.
In other words, their online marketing team has focussed on using the same
words, associated words, or similar phrases as “campervan hire Scotland” throughout the website, along with a
number of other factors.
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| Relevant pictures help too, so long as you enter their tags properly! |
Brian Dean over at Backlinko put together a comprehensive list of proven and speculative Google ranking factors, updated yesterday, and he came up with 204!
So when I say a ‘number of other factors’, I mean loads. One example is the
number of pages on a website; highland campervans might have a much greater
number of pages than its competitor websites, meaning there are probably more
keywords and SEO tags, so Google will identify it more strongly with the term “campervan hire Scotland”.
You probably know by now that there is no miracle formula
for getting to the top of Google, so even if you optimised your website for 200 ranking factors, you would not be guaranteed the number one slot. I would be incredibly surprised if you weren't in that slot, but there are no guarantees!
Search Engine Optimisation for your website
Optimising your website for your business goals and so that you rank well on Google, is the foundation of the online marketing we do at Vital Hike.
For example, if your business is a florist and the goal of your website
is to encourage online orders, then we optimise it with that in mind. Just to
give you an idea of what this means, you would probably target an area within
your delivery range, and so end up with a lot of keywords like:
- Flower Delivery Dundee
- Local flower delivery Angus
- Fresh flowers Dundee
- Dundee flower shop delivery
These keywords would feature in the content of your
webpages, but also behind the scenes in the form of SEO tags, page titles, URLs
and more.
Looking back at the list of 200 Google ranking factors, you
can see there are a host of things we look at to improve your website’s
performance and hopefully get your business more sales.
- Number 16 links longer content to higher search engine rankings, while duplicating content on your website (just copying and pasting it on different pages) can reduce your ranking.
- Number 63 mentions that Google prefers sites with an appropriate amount of contact information, so theoretically something as simple as including your address and phone number on your website could improve your search rankings.
And after you adjust all these aspects of your website, you
need to start running something like Google Analytics in order to analyse the website performance. For example, it might
take 8 hours to make all of your content longer, so wouldn't you like to know afterwords if it has been useful for your website? Of course you would, so you need to start looking at the stats. If you then find out it only
makes a small difference, you’ll know you need to improve something else,
etc.
But don’t worry, Vital Hike are on it!
If you’re worried your website isn’t performing well for you
or your business and potentially isn’t worth the money, then pop into Vital Hike for a professional analysis
of your website, along with suggestions for improvement.
Making websites work
for you is what we do.
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