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What does Google want? The top 10 ranking elements of the future

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What does Google want? It’s the million dollar question for webmasters and businesses everywhere. Even the most SEO-conscious may find themselves floundering as Google adjusts and refines its algorithms to return the best possible results to search engines searches.

No-one knows with 100% certainty what will secure a website number one ranking on Google for any given search term. As well as understanding that Google considers over 200 ranking signals, search results are influenced by factors such as your location and your search history.

And let’s not forget that different ranking factors affect different types of websites. A website selling clothes, for example, might be ranked based on factors such as being able to make secure payments, featuring unique product descriptions, the range and number of products, and product reviews by customers, as well as social signals. A medical information website, on the other hand, may be ranked around whether the content is accurate, trustworthy, supported by reliable sources, and with high-quality backlinks.

Google also looks at factors such as layout, code compliance, site architecture, internal links, high quality copy, different types of media/content on the site, unique meta data, structured data, and pages such as an About page, Contact Us page, Policy page, and Terms and Conditions page that prove yours is a real business.

Then, just when you think you’ve got Google sussed, you have a sense that the ground has shifted – or is about to shift – under your feet. Search engine optimisation advances at such a rate that it can feel like a race to keep up.

What does Google want?

Why does Google keep changing and refining its algorithms?

Ultimately, Google is a business. Its customers are those of us who use the search engine and its main function is to answer our questions. As for any business, quality matters. Google is constantly developing savvier, more sophisticated ways to understand how people search and return the most relevant, high-quality results possible, so that its customers can find what they need in a matter of seconds.

With good search engine optimisation, we can help Google to locate, index and return our website to the people who will get the most value from its content. Although we must think about what works today and what will drive enquiries about our business, we must also try to stay a step ahead by understanding where Google will focus more of its attention in the future.

While many businesses still attempt to game Google with keywords and backlinks, a far more sensible, ethical and effective approach is to keep Google’s main function in mind. If Google wants to return high quality search results that add value for the searcher, your main task is to create a website that is built around the user and meeting their needs with well researched design and content.

But let’s get specific – what does Google want from us and what will be the top 10 ranking elements of the future?

 

  1. The user experience

The red hot SEO phrase of the moment is ‘user experience’. It makes sense that this is where Google is focusing its attention. After all, the search engine needs to know that customers are having a good experience on the websites it’s sending them to. If they’re not, then it reflects poorly on the SERPs and on Google.

Generally speaking, if you have a website that offers a fantastic user experience, high-quality unique content, easy navigation, and answers searchers’ questions with well-researched information, then the chances are high that Google will reward your efforts with better rankings. Although the user experience is far from the only factor to consider, if you’re looking for a starting point to review your SEO, user experience is it.

What’s harder to define is how Google determines how good the user experience is on any given website.

There are several signals that are important. Initially, Google will look at the click through rate (CTR) you get through to your website from SERPs, i.e. the percentage of people who see one of your pages in search results and click on the link to find out more. By creating a unique and inviting title tag and meta description, you can help to create a call to action that entices visitors to your site.

Of course, just because visitors click through to your website doesn’t mean they will stay. This is why Google will then look at your bounce rate, i.e. the percentage of people who arrive on your site and click straight away from it without reading deeper into the content, and the time spent on the site.

If you have a low bounce rate because people are looking at two or more pages per visit and a longer visit time because visitors are sticking around to explore your content in more detail, these are two really strong signals to Google that you’re providing a good user experience and providing content that’s relevant to your target customers.

Actions to take:

  • Check the bounce rate and average time on site in Google Analytics

Google Analytics will show you the bounce rate for your website and average time spent on the site, as well as where people are most commonly entering and leaving, and where they’re spending their time. These are all statistics you should keep a close eye on.

If people are arriving on a page and then immediately bouncing away, now is a good time to explore why.

  • Can people see what you offer at a glance?
  • Are you talking directly the customer and focusing on them rather than you?
  • Is the website visually appealing?
  • Are the images unique and do they reflect your offering accurately?
  • Is your website easy to navigate?
  • Is there a strong call to action that lets people know what they need to do next?
  • Is it easy to contact you?
  • Does the site load up quickly?
  • Do you answer common customer questions?
  • Can people read deeper into a topic if they want to?

The answers to these questions can all help you to improve the user experience for visitors on your website.

  • Make sure each page of your website has a unique title tag, meta description and focus keyword

 

  1. Mobile friendliness

I’ve talked in-depth on this blog in the past about the importance of creating a mobile friendly website. In August 2015, Moz announced the results of its biannual Search Engine Ranking Correlation Study and Expert Survey – Ranking Factors: The Future of Search. Within that study, 88% of the SEO experts surveyed predicted an increase in the impact of mobile-friendliness on rankings. In fact, it was predicted to be the most important factor for the next two years.

Mobile searches have been on the upturn for some time and, in December 2014, finally outstripped desktop searches on Google. In April 2015, Google started giving mobile-friendly websites a ‘mobile-friendly’ label in mobile SERPs, so that customers would know that they were clicking through to a website that gives a good mobile user experience.

The ever-increasing use of mobile phones and devices means that people are moving away from keyboard/typed searches in favour of voice searches. And when we use voice searches, we tend to ask questions rather than just stating keywords.

Actions to take:

  • Look at your website from a mobile user’s perspective.
  • Is it easy to navigate?
  • Is the website responsive or do you have a dedicated mobile site that offers the same experience as your desktop site?
  • Does your website load up quickly?
  • If people ask questions to find your website, are those questions reflected in the content and will searchers quickly find the answer they’re looking for?
  • Does your website have a mobile-friendly label in mobile searches?
  • Go to Google’s mobile friendly test to see how mobile friendly your website is.

 

  1. Authority and perceived value

One of the challenges Google faces is deciding which websites contain accurate, well research content and which websites are claiming incorrect information as ‘fact’. As mentioned in the example in the introduction of this article, being able to trust that information is correct is especially important for medical or reference websites, but even with opinion or commercial websites, Google wants to send its customers to relevant, reputable sites.

In a recent article – Seven ways you can influence your website’s Domain Authority – we looked at different factors that can help you build trust in your website and grow your reputation and authority.

If, for example, lots of websites link back to yours as a place to find more information about a specific topic, this will boost your site’s authority. If you write a blog article that is widely shared on social media, this will act as a flag to Google that people want others to see your content too.

Google will now consider mentions and citations as well as direct links back to your website as a vote of confidence about your site’s authority.

Actions to take:

To build the authority and perceived value of your website, you can take steps such as:

  • Regularly adding a high quality, well researched blog to your website, supporting any facts with the source material
  • Building your social media presence
  • Disavowing bad links
  • Developing the internal links on your website so that it’s easy for visitors to find related articles

 

  1. Quantity and quality of instant answers provided in SERPs

As mentioned above, the increase in mobile searches and the use of voice search – plus the fact that we’re all becoming increasingly time poor – means that people often scan SERPs for an instant answer to their questions in the meta descriptions listed.

An extension of this is the Google Answers Box, which is a relatively new Google feature that you may already be familiar with. Most commonly, a Google Answers Box appears when a searcher types in a question beginning with ‘What’, ‘Why’ or ‘How’ – see the example below for the question ‘What is SEO?’

Google Answer Box
Google Answers Box – a relatively new Google feature.

If your website answers a commonly asked question and you have used a structured data markup, such as Schema.org (see point 5 below), you may be able to secure a feature in a Google Answer Box with a prominent listing at the top of page one of Google with a link back to your website.

Actions to take:

  • Add a frequently asked questions page or even add service- or product-specific FAQs to the relevant pages. Think about the questions your customers most commonly ask.

 

  1. Schema/Structured data

Google defines structured data markup as ‘a standard way to annotate your content so machines understand it. When your web pages include structured data markup, Google (and other search engines) can use that data to index your content better, present it more prominently in search results, and surface it in new experiences like voice answers, maps and ‘Google Now’.

Why do we need to use structured data markup?

When a person visits your website, they can usually tell at a glance what it is about from the information, images, etc. on the page. However, search engines may need more help deciphering the meaning of your content. A oft-cited example is a website about ‘Jaguars’ – human visitors can see at a glance that we’re talking about the cars, not the big cats, but a search engine would need more help to make that distinction.

Structured data markup is a way of showing Google what your content is about. If you have product reviews, event information, recipes, products, book reviews or other features that you would like Google to highlight in SERPs, structured data markup will help you achieve more visibility.

Schema.org is a collaboration between Google, Bing and Yahoo to help webmasters – even those who are non-techy or have limited coding knowledge – add structured data markup to a website.

Actions to take:

 

  1. Association with mobile apps and app popularity

In Moz’s Ranking Factors: The Future of Search study, 64% of the experts surveyed said that we should expect that businesses with a mobile app may well see an increase in their rankings, especially if the app is achieving lots of downloads. It makes sense that, with the growing use of mobile phones for searches, companies that provide an added user experience or present important information in a mobile app will have their efforts recognised by Google.

Action to take:

  • Consider whether an app could be created that would add to the user experience, and complement your business and website

 

  1. Site speed

There’s a strong case for arguing that the single most important technical factor for SEO purposes is site speed. In the Ranking Factors: The Future of Search study, 58% of the experts surveyed said they thought site speed as a ranking factor is set to increase.

Having a fast running website is essential because it dictates how users interact with it. If someone visits your website and it is slow to load, it will only take a matter of seconds for the visitor to decide to click back to Google and look for a faster-running website. The only exception might be if yours is a particularly niche site that contains information that is not easily found elsewhere.

According to stats by SEO expert, Tyler Collins, the top ten ranking sites for various search terms he looked at had an average load time of 0.99 seconds.

Actions to take:

  • Check out your website’s load speed with the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
  • Follow the subsequent recommendations from Google to improve your site speed.

 

  1. HTTPS

Back in March 2015, we looked in detail at How your website security and HTTPS could affect your SEO. Although HTTPS is arguably a minor ranking signal at the moment, the consensus is that its impact is set to increase over the coming months and years.

Although information sites may not store and use our individual data, the HTTPS Everywhere campaign explores the fact that, with each website we visit, we can help the orchestrators of malicious attacks build up a picture of who we are, our likes and dislikes, our hobbies, our jobs, our holidays and much more.

If, as proposed, Google does start warning people that they’re about to go on to a non-secure/non-HTTPS website, we are likely to see a big swing towards HTTPS websites across the board, rather than for just e-commerce sites or sites that collect consumer data.

Action to take:

 

  1. Understand the importance of Universal Search

 

universal search and Google media types
Universal Search

Universal search is an important concept to wrap your head around. When someone carries out a search in Google, the search engine doesn’t have enough information to know exactly what content the searcher is looking for. Do they want an article, a video, pictures, a white paper, recent news, a PDF download or something else altogether?

To cover its bases, Google tries to return a good mix of results across different types of media. This is why you can narrow down the SERPs pages by categories such as Web, News, Images, Maps, Videos, and so on (see the picture below).

The concept of the universal search is that every query deserve diversity. If you are able to create a mix of media that your customers will love, this can positively impact your rankings. Google would love a page that contains links to videos, podcasts or audio files, images, related images, a white paper or free download, recent news, a PDF, and links in the content, all around a particular topic.

Actions to take:

  • Add a mix of media to your website. If you have popular articles about a specific topic that’s of interest to your customers, can you enrich this with videos or a podcast, or add a free download to support the topic?
  • Make sure that any media added to your website is optimised properly with the focus keyword for the page on which it will appear, tags, alt text, etc.

 

  1. Social signals

There is ongoing debate about the importance of social signals as a ranking factor. How can Google count and measure signals from a platform as fast-moving as Facebook or Twitter, for example? Google maintains it does not directly use social signals as a ranking factor. However, social media and social signals should not be overlooked.

In reality, if you can build your profile on one or more of the main social media platforms by encouraging people to comment on and share your content, it is probable that you will boost the amount of traffic coming through to your website via social media. Once people are on your website, having come there to read a blog article or access a free download, the chances are that they will stick around for a while to do what they came to do. This can help boost the average time spent on the site, lower the bounce rate, and show Google that you have a strong stream of traffic coming in via social media. In turn, this is a signal that your website features content that people want to explore and digest.

If you also add a mechanism for sharing content from your website on to social media, this is another signal that people want to share what you have to say with their network. Google potentially sees this as a vote of confidence about your knowledge and authority.

So, while Google won’t rank your website higher in SERPs because you’ve got 100 more Facebook likers than a local competitor, if you’re getting more traction for your content, this is likely to boost your visibility in SERPs.

Actions to take:

  • Regularly share your content on social media platforms
  • Add social media sharing options on your website, so people can post content they find to their social networks
  • Remember that social media can help you build brand awareness and drive organic traffic to your website

 

A word about traditional ranking signals in 2015 and beyond

In addition to the ten factors above, it’s fair to say that some traditional ranking signals will continue to be important as SEO moves forward. While most SEO experts agree that paid links and anchor text are largely set to decrease in value, the ranking signals around links from high authority websites and URL structures look set to stay the same.

We would also recommend that you review whether you’re using your keywords in the right places. The Ranking Factors: The Future of Search study found that placing your focus keyword for a page in the title tag has the highest level of influence.

So, these are our predictions for the top 10 ranking elements of the future. Do you agree or disagree with our list? Is there anything you would like to know more about in a future blog? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the Comments below.

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6 WordPress SEO Plugins To Help You Dominate The Search Engines

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There is no doubt that SEO is hard work, especially if you’re new to it. A successful SEO campaign requires a mixture of technical knowledge and networking flair and it all takes a lot of time. Luckily for you if are undergoing an SEO campaign and your website is built with WordPress then your life is about to get a whole lot easier.

 

WordPress SEO Plugins To Help You Dominate The Search Engines

WordPress takes a lot of the headaches out of editing your website and there are some great plugins available that can really benefit your SEO campaign. If you aren’t comfortable with the more complicated aspects of editing the code of your website or using FTP then these WordPress plugins can be a god send. Here are 6 of the bestWordPress SEO plugins that you should definitely include in your SEO strategy.

 

SEO Plugin 1: Yoast SEO

The Yoast SEO plugin is the go-to for all the basics that are needed to optimise your website. Once installed you can easily edit the Meta Tags on each page and post through a handy editable box at the bottom of the page.

You can also add your social media pages to the plugin which will make it easier for Google to index them. One of the best features of the Yoast SEO plugin is its ability to allow you to upload an XML sitemap easily without having to use FTP.

 

SEO Plugin 2: Redirection

If you have recently updated your website or are going through a rebrand then the Redirection plugin will save you a lot of time and effort. Broken links can lose you potential customers, as they drop will off your website and it also has an adverse effect on your overall SEO.

Redirection allows you to simply state the urls of the page you want redirected and the new destination page. So if you are optimising your urls to make them more SEO friendly then you can easily redirect the old one to the new version.

 

SEO Plugin 3: Broken Link Checker

As discussed broken links can be extremely detrimental to any SEO campaign and so Broken Link Checker is perfect for finding and easily fixing broken links within your website. This plugin makes it easy to spot broken links within your content by highlighting them for you. You will also get email alerts whenever a broken link is found which makes it harder for you to forget about them. Once you have spotted the broken link all you need to do is go to the plugin page and you can easily edit all them there without having to go into each individual page and/or post..

 

SEO Plugin 4: SEO Friendly Images

Images are often overlooked when a website is being optimised and with the SEO Friendly Images plugin you don’t need to worry as it will take care of it all for you. Title and alt text are important pieces of information that search engine robots look for when crawling your website and now they can be automatically added to all of your images. You will probably still want to optimise some images to include specific keywords but if you have a website that is constantly uploading new images then it can save you lots of time.

 

SEO Plugin 5: OptinMonster

It isn’t enough to drive traffic to your website, you need to convert that traffic into paying customers otherwise there’s no point to your digital marketing efforts. OptinMonster is a very useful plugin that lets you collect the email address of those who visit your site. This allows you to future these potential customers through targeted email campaigns to increase their awareness of your brand and grow to trust it.

You can create forms, pop-ups, header, footer and sidebar calls to action that are great at grabbing visitors’ attention and enticing them to provide their details.

 

SEO Plugin 6: All In One schema.org Rich Snippets

How your website is displayed in the search engine results is very important as that can be the deciding factor to whether someone clicks on your result or a competitor’s result. If you have rich snippets within your search result then you will greatly improve your chance of earning a click through into your website.

A rich snippet is an area where extra information about your website that the use may find useful is listed. They can include, review ratings, opening times, offers, prices etc. and they also extend the size of your listing which is a proven bonus for increasing the click through rate.

 

To conclude…

Using these WordPress SEO plugins is by no means a quick fix, you will still have to work hard and keep up to date with this ever evolving industry but they will allow you to implement changes more easily and allow you to perform mundane or technical tasks with a lot more ease.

If you don’t have a WordPress website then don’t panic, there are other plugins available for a wide range of CMS’s, you just need to do some research to find the best ones.

Do you have a favourite WordPress plugin that makes your life easier? We’d love to hear about it – simply let us know in the comment box below.

 
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Never run out of blog content ideas again!

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Over the past couple of weeks we’ve looked at why blogging and content creation are good for business, as well as ways to spread the word about your content to drive traffic to your website and generate social shares.

One of the common concerns we hear from our clients is, ‘That’s all very well but how do we keep coming up with fresh blog content?’ or ‘What if we run out of things to say?’ Never fear, in this week’s blog we’re looking at some of our favourite tools, techniques and strategies for coming up with fresh content week in and week out.
blog content ideas

  • Write about what you know

As we’ve discussed in the past, your business blog is an opportunity to talk about what you know in more detail. If you sell products, you could feature blogs that talk about:

  • Sourcing the products
  • Your suppliers
  • Key ingredients – their benefits and why you use them in your products
  • Tutorials
  • Equipment
  • Number lists for key events in the calendar, e.g. Five products that should be on your Christmas list, or Ten Mother’s Day gifts that show you care

If you sell services, many of the above approaches would still work. You could also blog about:

  • Your business story – why the businesses started and what you’ve learned
  • How the services you offer help clients
  • Client spotlights

 

  • Listen to your customers

When it comes to creating blog content that will be read, your customers may well be telling you what they want to read without you even realising. When you receive new enquiries, are there questions that people often ask? If so, you could write a series of blogs answering common questions.

When you post on social media, what are the topics that seem to strike a chord and get people talking?

A business coach who works with self-employed mothers with young families might notice that her customers want to know how to be more productive, how to make the most of their limited work time, how to price their products and services, how to manage their workload if one of their children is suddenly ill, and so on. All of these topics would make great blogs for that coach.

When you notice a topic that creates a buzz with your target audience, it’s a good idea to make a note of it. How do your products or services fit into this topic? What knowledge do you have that your customers would find useful?

If there’s something about your business that customers often praise in reviews, you could put a spotlight on this element of your service in a blog article. Why did it come about? How does it help customers?

 

  • Target specific keywords

Google Analytics and Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) can both be great sources of blog topic inspiration. Is there a keyword or phrase that you would like to rank well for but that sits slightly outside of your main website keywords? Is there a keyword or phrase that customers often use to find your business?

By understanding what your potential customers are searching for, you can brainstorm some potential blog topics that fit with these keyword searches. A property management company, for example, might find people are searching for how to secure a rental property with a guarantor, what insurance a private landlord needs, rental property maintenance or how private landlords are regulated. These would all make great blog topics that the property management company already knows people are searching for.

 

  • Track what’s happening in your industry

One way to position your blog as an authority within your industry is to blog about the topics, big and small, that are currently affecting your industry and your customers. Has new legislation been passed that will impact on businesses or clients? What do you think about it? Can you help customers understand the legislation?

Perhaps there’s been a celebrity news story that connects with your industry, or new technology has been launched that could change how products or services are made or sold?

What are people talking about in industry groups in LinkedIn? Are there articles from people you view as influencers in your sector? This can give you a steer on the issues shaping your industry right now.

Again, these questions can all lead you to potential blog topics.

 

  • Use Google Trends

This brings us to Google Trends, which can be a powerful decision-making and content ideas generating tool. You can track the big topics that are trending worldwide as well as more locally; you can also explore within categories such as Business, Entertainment or Sports. In addition, you can ask Google to notify you about how specific keywords or phrases are performing. For example, you might want to know if people are talking about your business, your suppliers, your industry or your competitors.

 

  • Keep a swipe file

Copywriters, journalists and other writers often keep a swipe file. This can be a physical or virtual folder in which they store articles they’ve read and enjoyed, headlines that have inspired them to click through, inspirational content, how-to guides and much more.

A swipe file can be a powerful source of ideas but it’s important to never just copy and paste from your swipe file as you should always be striving for unique content to avoid a duplicate content penalty from Google and because plagiarism is never OK.

 

  • Try a topic generator

There are some fun topic and headline generators online that you could try out for inspiration. Portent’s content ideas generator has been known to hit gold, as has Hubspot’s blog topic generator.

 

  • Follow-up on successful posts

If you have had a blog that really took off in the past, attracting more social shares and website visits than most of your other articles (you can find this information in Google Analytics), then you might want to think about how you could follow up on the blog. Could you explore the topic from another angle or add more detail? Has your knowledge changed since you wrote the post? Are there any facts that need updating?

Your past successes can be a good steer on what your customers would like to read about on your blog.

 

  • Feature guest blogs

Back at the beginning of 2014, there was a lot of panic around the concept of guest blogging when Matt Cutts published an article on his blog entitled, The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO. When Google took action against the MyBlogGuest website two months later, many people worried that featuring a guest blog on their website could impact negatively on their SEO.

In our opinion, your website can do without poorly targeted, low quality guest blogs written and featured strictly for SEO purposes. However, if you know someone in a field that relates to your business and who has information and knowledge to share with your customers that they would find of value, a guest blog could be a perfect way to reach a new audience or increase the scope of the content that you are able to offer. It’s also a good way of shaking up your content and keeping it fresh.

If someone blogs for your site, you might also want to talk to them about writing a reciprocal blog to be featured on their website.

 

Of course, generating new blog ideas takes time. Try to store all of your ideas in a central place and create an editorial calendar, so you know what topic or topics you plan to cover on your blog each week. If you’re short on time or ideas, why not speak to us about Optimised Content Package for high quality, SEO-friendly articles that are unique to your business and carefully researched to appeal to your customers?
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Why blogging and content creation are good for business

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Having had a few weeks earlier this year when we didn’t publish a new blog article because we were busy with client work, I was determined to get momentum around the SEO+ blog back up and running.

Having posted a new article a few weeks ago – Our 10 favourite free SEO tools to optimise your website – and several since, I noticed a sudden and significant surge in enquiries. When I checked my Google Analytics, I found that this one article had increased traffic to the SEO+ website by 238.51% (with most of the traffic coming from Google and social media). Visitors were staying on the site for an average of 11.94% minutes longer and visiting more pages. There had also been a 75.58% increase in people visiting our Contact page.

The stats don’t lie and reinforce my belief that blogging and content creation are not only an essential part of good search engine optimisation but also fantastic for connecting with potential customers.

 

blogging for business

 

The benefits of blogging and content creation

Before you write a new article, it’s important to understand who your customers are and what they would like to know more about. What would give them extra value? How can you help solve a problem? What do they want, not just need? What do you know about that inspires your customers? These are all questions to ask.

Writing a blog article gives you a chance to talk about a topic in more depth than anywhere else on your website. This has several benefits:

  1. You can give customers more information about something that interests them.
  2. Customers find themselves thinking, ‘If you give this much information away for free every week/fortnight/month, I would get so much more from working with you’.
  3. You can build your reputation as an expert in your field.
  4. You can link to other content of interest and drive traffic to other areas of your site, to increase the number of enquiries or sales.
  5. You can demonstrate your relevance to your customers, showing that yours is the right business for them and that you’re talking their language.

 

As the stats above show, there are clear SEO benefits of blogging and content creation too:

  1. Posting free content to your website encourages the search engines to re-crawl and index your site.
  2. Blog articles take longer to read than most web pages, which increases the average time people spend on your website.
  3. If people come to your website to read an article, they are less likely to bounce away from it, while links to further information within the article may take them to other pages, also decreasing your bounce rate.
  4. The factors above show Google that your website is well maintained and that you care about providing content that your customers will find useful. These are all ranking signals.

 

Blogging, content creation and social media

Blogging and content creation are integral to a successful social media strategy because they help give your customers fresh content and set you apart as an expert.

If someone reads and finds value in one of your blog articles, they’re likely to share it with their social media network. You can help facilitate this by adding social sharing options to each article (the GetSocial or Flare plugins are great for this if you have a WordPress website) and by sharing a link to each new blog on all of your social media platforms. In next week’s SEO+ blog, I will be looking at how you can promote your content for maximum visibility.

 

Consistency is the key to blogging success

Once you make a commitment to blog, it’s important to be consistent. We would advise that’s it’s better to blog just once a month and do it consistently, if that’s all you have time for, than to randomly blog to no schedule. Ideally, you want your customers to know when they can expect new content from you because then they’ll look out for it, reading your blog as part of their routine.

If you have time to blog more regularly – once a week is typical for many businesses – then you have weekly content that you can share on your social media pages. You can also use your blog as inspiration for Facebook statuses, Tweets, memes, LinkedIn posts, or set up a Pinterest board that features all of your articles.

Another way to get value from blogging is to use your weekly articles as the focal point for a free e-newsletter that you send out to your customers (we’ll talk about this in more detail next week). Again, people will come to expect a weekly correspondence from you, keeping your business at the forefront of their inboxes and their minds.

As you can see blogging and content creation have many SEO and wider business benefits. If you think blogging would be great for your business but you’re stuck for time or not sure where to start and would like to know more about how SEO+ can help, please give us a call on 01626 270 085 or take a look at our Optimised Content Package.

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A guide to setting up your Google My Business storefront page for local businesses

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If you run a local business, then it’s a good idea to have and maintain a presence on Google using Google My Business. By creating a local page on Google My Business, you can ensure that your business information will show up on Google Search, Google Earth, Google Maps, and on other Google properties. Your business will also have its own Google+ page to connect with customers and be a place where they can leave reviews. In turn, a presence on Google and customer reviews both provide ranking signals to Google that could help boost your website’s visibility and traffic.

In this week’s blog, we’re looking specifically at storefront businesses, i.e. if you serve customers at your business location and want them to be able to find you on Google Maps. Google My Business has an option specifically for storefront businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, retail shops, dental practices, etc.

This is our guide to setting up your storefront business page.

Google My Business

 

Using Google My Business

To get best results from using a Google My Business storefront page, Google recommends that you represent your business on the platform in a way that’s consistent with how its presented in the ‘real world’. In other words, you should use the same branding, images, fonts, logos, and key messages that customers might also find on your signage or stationery. This will help customers recognise your business and have the same expectations of it both on and offline.

You should make sure that your address is accurate. In fact, this is good practice whenever your business is listed on a website. Google looks for consistency across directories, for example, so always ensure that you write your address in the same way. If you want to promote a brand, product or organisation that doesn’t have a business address, you should set up a brand page rather than a local business storefront page.

According to Google, you should also choose the fewest number of categories it takes to describe your core business rather than lots of less relevant categories. This will help customers who are genuinely interested in your products or services find your business, bringing high quality traffic to your Google My Business page.

Google has strict eligibility criteria for a local Google+ page:

  • You must be able to make in-person contact with your customers during your stated opening hours (although ATMs, video rental kiosks and express mail drop boxes are the exemption to this rule).
  • You cannot have a local Google+ page if your business is under construction or not yet open to the public.
  • Rental or for-sale properties cannot have their own local Google+ page, although sales or leasing offices can.
  • You also cannot list an ongoing service, class or meeting at a location you don’t own or have authority to represent. You would need the ‘host’ or owner of the premises to display your information on their local Google+ business page within the ‘Introduction’ field.

 

Getting started

Step 1: Create a Google+ account

Before you can create your storefront business page, you will need to set up a Google+ account, if you don’t already have one. To do this, go to https://accounts.google.com where you will be given the option to sign in or ‘Create an account’.

When you choose ‘Create an account’, you will be taken to the following screen:

Create a Google+ account

 

You will need to complete the form on the right of the screen, which will then give you the option to set up a personal Google+ profile. There are clear instructions to take you through this initial setup.

Set 2: Get your business page

Once you have a Google+ account, go to Google My Business and log in. Click on the ‘Get your page’ option and you’ll be taken to screen where you need to choose what type of Google business page you want.

Get your Google business page

The Storefront business option (which we’re looking at today) is for businesses that serve their customers at a business location and want to be found on Google Maps – this is ideal for shops, restaurants and hotels.

The Service area business option is for businesses that work within a specific service area and want customers to be able to see at a glance if they cover their address – this is the perfect choice for plumbers, electricians, taxi firms and takeaway food companies.

A Google+ brand page is similar to a Facebook business page in that it lets you reach out to existing and potential customers. This is the best option if you work with customers all over the country, or even the world.

 

Setting up a Storefront or Service Area page

If you click on the Storefront or Service Area options, you will be taken to a map where you will be asked to enter your business name and address. If Google has a record of your business or there are several businesses with a similar name, you will be shown one or more pins on the map and asked to choose which one is yours.

If you don’t see your business listed here, you can click on ‘No, these are not my businesses’ or ‘I’ve correctly entered the business’. This will then give you the opportunity to enter your business details. Make sure you add an accurate, complete street address and a phone number which will let customers reach your businesses directly. Once you are happy that your business information is complete, click ‘Submit’.

On this screen, there is a tick box asking whether you deliver goods and services at your customers’ locations. You would tick this if you run a Service Area-type business such as making and delivering takeaway food. If people come to you, leave this box unchecked.

You will then see a message asking you to confirm that you are authorised to manage the business and agree to the Terms and Conditions. Tick the check box and click Continue.

Google will also show a message about sending you a code to verify that the page is yours – this is so that Google can be sure that the information it has about your storefront or service-area business is accurate. Depending on what type of business you run, Google offers different methods of verification including postcode verification, phone verification, instant verification (if you’ve already verified your business with Google Webmaster Tools) or bulk verification (if you run a business with 10+ locations).

Once you have verified your storefront page, you may see a banner asking you to review your information and make any final changes. Click ‘Done editing’ when you are happy that the information on the page is correct and up-to-date. You won’t be able to change the business’s name on your page until you complete the verification process.

Alternatively, at the point when you see the initial verification message, you can choose to click ‘Continue and verify later’ to go straight through to your page to begin fleshing it out.

 

Your Google My Business Storefront page

You will then be taken through to your Google My Business Storefront or Service Area page where Google will talk you through how to configure your settings, access your business apps and edit your page. Your edits won’t show up on Google until you verify your page.

Don’t forget to add a profile picture (this should be at least 250 x 250 pixels) and a cover image (ideally 1,080 x 608 pixels) that reflects your business branding. You can also add photos of your business, products and services; change your opening hours; add further contact details and much, much more.

Once you are happy with your profile (which you can edit at any time in the future too), click on the ‘Verify now’ button.

 

Maintaining your Storefront page

Now that you have a Google My Business Storefront presence, you might want to consider running a call-only AdWords campaign, a relatively new feature from Google AdWords. According to Google, 70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results. Call-only campaigns enable you to show up your phone number, business description and call button right when people are searching – instead of paying per click, you pay per call.

Even without an AdWords campaign, by spending just a few minutes a week on your Google My Business Storefront page, you can help your business stand out in Google searches. A professional picture of your real life shop front, for example, will help people recognise your business when they’re looking for it in person and helps to make a connection between your online and physical presence.

Posting news stories, new product information and special offers to your page can all be ways to connect with your customers and encourage people to talk about your business with their friends, again on and offline. If you can encourage your customers to leave reviews on your page this will also help your business to stand out in search results.

 

Do you use Google My Business yet? Do you have a bricks and mortar shop with a storefront page on Google? If not, what’s holding you back? Building your presence can be great for your local SEO efforts.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences – please let us know in the comment section below.

 
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