I am frequently asked by new clients as well as family and friends why their business cannot seem to be found in a basic search unless their firm name is used, even though their website has been in existence for months or even years. Sometimes I am asked to help with a paid search campaign. I use the keyword generation tool by dropping in the URL of their website. The answer?
“No data”
“Use different keywords for more results”
This simply means that the keyword planner, in this case Google, has found no keywords on the website. How can this happen when the website has been around plenty long enough to be crawled by Google and other search engines? The answer is that many of the most popular website builder tools require an additional step or plugin to add common product keywords that often are skipped or forgotten. Thus, a Mexican restaurant in the city of Orange cannot be found when a consumer does a Google search for “Mexican restaurants near me.”
Sometimes I have noticed that the client actually paid for the keyword plugin tool, but no keywords have been added. This indicates that whoever built the website skipped a step yet charged the client for the plugin. However it happened, this problem is easily solved.
Here are the essential free things that every business and non-profit needs to do to create a digital presence and be found by someone looking for their service or product:
1. Have your main keyword in the title tag on each page of your website.
2. Have a page for each core product or service on your website.
3. Have a page for each primary brand that you service or represent.
4. Make certain that your HTML code reflect each of the above primary products and services. This includes your website platform keyword tool, plugin, or service provider account managers.
5. Fill out a Google Business Profile completely with each of the above items.
6. Establish a social media business profile on each social channel that your primary audience may frequent.
7. Make certain that your firm name, address and phone number are consistent on each of the above. If you move or have any changes, make those changes in each of these places.
If an employee, friend or relative have the login credentials for each of the above, make certain that you do also. If you lose contact for any reason and cannot make changes it is difficult and sometimes impossible to recover the credentials. I have seen long established businesses lose their credentials due to separation from an employee or contractor that does not respond to requests for these credentials. In extreme cases they have had to relaunch their website on a new domain and begin the steps to establishing a digital presence all over again.
Links to do the basics yourself:
Or have us do it for you: LocalLook pre-defined packages for every business or non-profit