Promoting your website is essential to the success of your business. The days of “build it and they will come” are long over.
Competition for website visitors is fierce, so you need to use promotional strategies which get real results. Here are three ways you can promote your website using free tools.
#1 Claim your Google My Business website
According to a recent study 46% of all Google searches are local.
Consequently one of the best ways of promoting your website is to ensure it is properly optimized for local search.
One of the easiest, and most effective, ways of optimizing for local searchers, is to claim and complete fully your Google My Business account. This is a free service that Google provides for precisely this reason.
Start by registering and verifying your Google My Business account: https://www.google.com/business/
Once you have registered your account you need to complete your business details as fully and accurately as possible.
This will assist Google with ensuring that it places your business correctly on both Google Maps and in the local pack. It will also impress visitors to your Google My Business (GMB) profile that you are a credible business. You can complete the following steps to optimize your GMB profile yourself, or alternatively you can work with a medical practice marketing agency to ensure that this is done properly.
One of the most important elements for your GMB profile is including accurate Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) details. The details that you provide for these in your GMB account need to be consistent with your website and any other third party websites. Third party listings of your business directories are called local citations. According to Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors, these are the single most important signal for ranking in local search.
Local citations are used by Google to assess the credibility of your business.
It wants to ensure that when it sends a user of its search engine to a business website, that they are receiving accurate information. Businesses will often have inconsistent NAP information because of normal changes to their business practices,such as a change in phone number or address. Check that all of your local citations are up to date and consistent.
Google My Business allows you to include up to a 750 character description of your business. Take advantage of the full space to describe your business in detail. Aim for a description which is both accurate and engaging.
Once you have finished your description, select a category and subcategory which is most appropriate for your business. Choosing the right category can make a significant difference for which local searches your business appears for. The primary category should be the main focus of your Take the time to ensure that you have correctly aligned these categories with your main business offerings.
The next step is images. Google will display these images on your GMB profile. The right images can be highly persuasive for customers who view that profile. You want to include at least three photos each of the interior and exterior of the business. Take the time to select photos which will “sell” your business to prospective customers. Accompany these with photos of your team.
Lastly, put in place a process to actively collect Google My Business reviews.
Your number and average rating of your reviews will appear in the local pack and Google Map results. Having a large number of positive reviews, will mean that users are more likely to click through to your website and to convert into clients.
#2 Leverage Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is another free, but powerful, tool provided by the search engine giant.
GSC provides you with a wealth of data that you can use to optimize your website for search engine traffic.
Google Search Console is a web analytics tool that you can use to evaluate your website’s performance in the search engines. You can use GSC to identify opportunities to improve your search engine rankings.
If you haven’t already, start by registering your GSC account: https://search.google.com/search-console.
You will need to verify your account using one of the methods that Google provides. Once your website is verified you can start to analyse how your website is performing in Google’s search engine results.
The following method can be used to identify “low hanging fruit” that can be optimized for more search engine traffic. Start by clicking on the Performance tab on the left hand menu.
Choose an appropriate date range. Usually 6 months will be suitable for most websites. Next select Total Impressions and Average Position just above your performance graph. An impression is when a URL record appears in the search engine results for a user. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it was clicked on, just that it appeared. Average position is where your web page ranks in the search engine results.
You want to identify web pages which receive a large number of impressions but which your webpage isn’t already ranking in the top position.
Select the Queries tab just below the performance graph. Now click on Impressions, so that they are ordered from the highest number down. Look for queries where you have an average position ranking between 5 and 20. This means that your webpage ranks currently somewhere on the first or second page, but not in the top position. Google thinks your webpage is relevant to this search but not the best possible result.
Next click on the query to see which page on your website is ranking for that result. Enter into Google the query that the page is ranking for. Take a close look at the top five results for that query. Compare these against your own webpage to identify how your page could be improved.
#3 Guest posting
Guest posting is where you write an article or blog post that is featured on a third party website.
Guest posting helps to promote your website in two complimentary ways.
Firstly, if you feature your article on a credible website from your industry, then you gain exposure to that site’s audience. You will be able to draw some of that website’s traffic back to your own site.
Secondly, guest posting helps to build links from that website to your own. Here are some content curation examples. Links are one of the main off-page signals that Google uses as part of its search algorithm. The more links you receive from an authoritative website in your niche that you receive, the better your webpages will rank in the search engine results. As your web pages rank higher, the more search engine visitors you will receive.
With guest posting you should focus on quality rather than quantity. Focus your efforts on obtaining guest posting opportunities on high quality websites that are aligned with your business.
The easiest way to identify potential guest posting opportunities is with an advanced Google search query.
Keyword + intitle:“contribute to”
Keyword + intitle:“write for us”
Keyword + intitle:“submit” + inurl:blog
The website will typically provide details for how to submit a guest post request. This will usually involve providing an outline for your proposed guest post that you want to write.
Conclusion
Promoting your website effectively means focusing your efforts on methods that actually work.
Be consistent with the three methods detailed here and you will see that they deliver real results.
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H … https://t.co/NQyb69FZV1 pic.twitter.com/2VRuSBxGCF— Will Corry (@slievemore) April 18, 2020