If you want your small business to rank in Google, you need to focus on three things: Branding, website design, and technical SEO. Today, we’re going to cover why these 3 things matter the most when it comes to Google ranking your website.
How do I rank in Google?
We get asked this question all of the time. SEO is a very big topic that you can spend hours researching. There are plenty of blogs, videos, podcasts, and courses dedicated to this subject, which can make finding accurate information really difficult.
We have personally followed and tried many of the tips and techniques that experts say will help your website rank, but found the work we put in produced little to no results. Over the years we have been in business, we have consistently ranked page one in Google for keywords relating to “web designers in Philadelphia”.
We believe the reason that we have ranked over the years for these terms is not due to tools or tips that are designed to “trick the system”, but by focusing on the following 3 things.
Branding
If you want to get first page rankings in Google, you need to focus on your brand. You need to get really clear on the person that you’re targeting, what it is that the are looking for, and how you can help them.
- Does your company offer a solution to their problem?
- Do you answer their questions?
- Is what you offer what they want?
If your brand doesn’t clearly communicate those three things, you aren’t connecting to your customers. Brands that develop a strong connection to their customers are the ones that rank high in Google. If people are not responding well to what you have to offer, ranking in Google won’t make a difference. If people don’t feel that connection to you, they are going to go somewhere else. Remember, you are looking for sales, not rankings. First page Google rankings don’t mean anything if the sales aren’t coming in.
When it comes to branding, make sure you stay in your lane. If you’re a local coffee shop, don’t waste your time trying to outrank Starbucks. You will never outrank a company that large. What you should focus on is trying to be the best coffee shop in your local area. Target your local market instead of trying to rank nationally. Focus on where your customers are and you will see results.
Website Design
A professional looking website is another important SEO factor. If you focus on your branding, but lead people to a website that looks a bit shady, they will go somewhere else. If people quickly bounce from your website, that will affect your rankings because Google will start to assume that people aren’t getting what they had hoped from your website.
Google uses AI technology to crawl your website that is smart enough to differienate between sites that look good vs. sites that are a mess. When it comes to design, here are things you want to focus on (and things that Google will look for):
- Make sure your text is readable.
- Make sure your site looks good on mobile.
- Eliminate anything unnecessary to avoid clutter.
- Make sure your navigation is easy to understand.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO covers how your website functions on the back end. When Google crawls your website, they go down a list of technical items and will rank your site according to how you score. No one knows the exact number, but it’s been said that they check over 200 factors regarding technical SEO elements. Below are some of the things they check for:
- Load time
- External scripts
- Accessibility
- Page size
If you’re interested in learning where your site falls on a technical level, check out our SEO Audit.
Conclusion
When it comes to SEO, we believe it’s more important to focus on your overall strategy and online prescense, rather than waste time trying to trick the system by following outdated techniques. Building a solid online foundation for your business will take you much farther and will be much longer lasting. If you need help with branding, website design or your technical SEO, contact us today.
