How to get listed higher on Google

So this post is created specifically for a friend of mine who has a local business and wants to get her web site listed higher up on Google, get more traffic and ultimately more customers.

This won’t be particularly in-depth but instead will be step by step instructions on the principles involved.

Step 1 – List the words people search for

Open up Word or Notepad. Imagine you are one of your potential customers. You are sitting in front of your computer and you want to find someone, to fix your problem, offer a particular service or sell a certain product. What would that person type into Google in order to find you or your business?

Type out all of the words and phrases that the potential customer might put into the Google search box. EG if you are a make up artist, your potential customer might put into Google:

make up artist in <name of local town/area>
make up person for my wedding
I need someone to do my makeup for my wedding
best wedding make up in <name of local/town>
how can I create amazing make up effects?

List as many different phrases as you can.

Step 2 – Add a blog to your site

Create a blog on your web site. Most content management systems like Weebly and WordPress have a blogging facility and allow you to add a Blog section to your web site. Google likes to see lots of text and regular information being added to a web site. Blogs are an ideal way of doing this. A blog can be used to answer the potential questions that your clients might have.

Step 3 – Create a blog post

This takes some time, but nothing worth doing, comes easy! Looking at your list of words people type into the search box to find your business, see if you can group certain phrases together. In our example above we had a couple of phrases that included the word “wedding”. So using this example we could create a blog post that is all about “how to find someone to do my wedding make up” or how about “5 tips for finding someone to do your wedding makeup.”

You need to create a blog post, with that title.

Step 4 – Add at least 400 words

Unfortunately, this is a bit like going to back to school or Uni and you’ve got to get your word count up! Add relevant text and think of different ways of saying the same thing. Try and come up with alternative methods of writing similar text. (see what I did there?) Include all the phrases and words that you grouped together. I say 400 words as a minimum. It really should be more. This blog post for example is 753 words long.

Step 5 – Add headings

Break the text up into short paragraphs, with relevant headings. Format your blog post with headings. Most content management systems give you the ability to change how text is formatted. Text that is formatted as Heading 1, will be bold and larger. So it will look something like this:

Step 6 – Spruce it up and publish your blog post

Ideally you want to add some relevant photos and images to your blog post to make it all pretty and nice to look at. Click that Publish or Add button to make your beautifully worded masterpiece viewable to the world!

Step 7 – Talk about it

The final step is to let everyone know (including Google) about your wonderful blog post. If you have a Twitter account, tweet about your new blog post. If you have a Facebook account, tell all your friends about it… in fact you should tell the world! (make your post visible to everyone, not just friends.) If you have Google+…. yes you guessed it… add a post about your new blog post. The same goes for any other social media accounts.

That’s it. You now have to wait, although you should really move onto your next blog post. Don’t hang around, start work on your next blog post right now! Google loves regular content. Target another phrase potential customers might use to find you.

Some of your blog posts/pages are going to do better than others, but if you produce relevant information, that is well written and isn’t just a couple of paragraphs, then you will have some success. The level of success also depends on your market and how much competition there is.

This is the basics. There is a lot more you can do to get your web site listed higher up on Google, but this is the basics. If you don’t want to add a blog, just add normal web pages, but ensure those pages have those words and phrases on them!

Good luck and remember when you’re rich and famous who told you this information. 🙂

Haydon Rouse

Haydon is a business consultant / mentor and an expert at marketing and selling online. He genuinely wants to help you and provide exceptional service. Why? Because, when he achieves that, you will tell your friends about him. Haydon has been marketing and selling online for over 20 years. He has lived in East Kent all his life (cough... over 50 years.. cough), knows the local area like the back of his hand and has fantastic customer service skills. You can contact him here.