Not sure if you have noticed that lately the space that Google has for organic results is less and less available. You can see that now between the paid Ads and Google trying to get out there their own products, the possibility of getting noticed through organic searches is more and more difficult these days. Based on Blumenthal’s post, Google has already reached 100% monetization above the fold for some local search queries. This can be very frustrating for SEO companies that help clients and as well for small companies that rely exclusively on organic traffic.
So what do you do? Is there anything that you can do to battle back? There are a few things that you can do that may help your business listed below.
Optimized your Google Plus listing.
- Make sure your business information is complete and accurate, that you have your hours of operation; that your phone, address and name is correct and consistent. Be sure to include the website, as Google uses information from the website to improve search results.
- Choose the most appropriate and specific business category for what your company does and offers. Do not be afraid to include a more specific category instead or a generic one, because that is taken care of through Google’s algorithm, as you will show up even if people are looking for more generic term. What is really important is that the category included truly reflects your business.
- Strong presence in the web. Make sure that your presence is strong and that the information in other websites about your business is accurate, make sure to contact and rectify any discrepancy or inaccuracy.
- Good reviews speak for themselves; always encourage your customers to leave the good impressions they have. A great tool for this is your Google+ page.
- Be active, do not create a page for the sake of creating it. Do not leave it unattended; use it to connect, to inform, to share.
Sooner than later your will see how your rankings on Google listings will improve.
Consider Advertising
As you may already know, CTR and PPC campaigns have gained great traction these days, studies showed that in the last year AdWords CTR had increased 26%. When you decide to use this venue, you may want to consider the following.
- Start small and get familiarized. This is a great venue to use, but again you need to know how it works and as you go you can always change it and improve. Do not try to cover it all from the beginning. Start with 5 to 10 key words and no more than that; you always can add more as you go.
- Match up key words to landing pages, instead of broad web pages. You will have better results and better options to gather the visitor’s information if you target those specific key words with pages that will appeal to the specific interest and not a generic page with broader information.
- Set up a daily budget. This is important in order to avoid spending thousands of thousands of dollars on low value clicks. You can set up a maximum budget and be able to improve ads as you go.
Sometimes you may think and feel that at in the end you are falling into Google’s game. Like it or not this is a reality that may not change. We need to adapt and adjust to what the situation is, so with the techniques mentioned above you can start changing the game and be able to get the recognition you are looking for.