SEO - Visibility on search engines

Hi Learners,

Welcome to AnaloguetoAi blog. In our previous post, we discussed the importance of keyword focussed content and what are some standard characteristics of content that Google deems valuable while ranking. If you missed it, you can find it here. While we discussed great keyword focussed content, we also hovered through the crawling & Indexing process of a typical website. Crawling and Indexing ensures that our website gets included in the Google database while keyword focused content ensures visibility for the right set of keywords. Hence your keyword research forms the backbone of your SEO strategy. In case you missed the post on keyword research for SEO, you can find it here.

Why does visibility of Search Engines matter?

According to Google's research, search activity amounts for 36% of the time spent online. This means your customers are searching for you in the moments of need, research & support. Interestingly the web has embraced mobility in a way never imagined before.

When you are in a business of selling life-changing products

Or when you are a local business

Or when you are selling online / offline

Or when you want to drive walk-ins to your store

Or when you are providing great information

When you have something valuable to sell or share

Where should my business be found?

Its a known fact that Google accounts for major chunk of online traffic. So much so that when Google was down for 5 mins in 2013, global internet traffic was down by 40%! This means you starting point for web visibility cannot & should not exclude Google. Some of the common avenues where your business has the potential to be seen on Google results are...

Google Map Results

Your local business will greatly benefit if it is found while people are searching for it and they are nearby. To get your business listed on Maps, you need to create a business profile on Google My Business. GMB is a self-serve platform for businesses that enables them to create local listings, upload pictures, and also allow its prospects to view, rate & review its services. Google heavily relies on User Generated Content (UGC) to gauge the quality of your business. We will dive into the details of GMB in our future posts. Its important to know however that your business will first be manually verified after you create a profile on this platform through a post-card or a telephone verification.

Natural Search Results on Search Engine's Result Pages (SERP)

Natural search results or Organic search results are regular listings that the search engine shows up when a search is made on Google. These results are shown based on 3 broad factors...

1. Relevancy - Matching of content on the page with the keyword searched.
2. Credibility - Quality of content & stickiness value
3. Popularity - Shareability value of the content. 

Its important to note that ranking on SERP is a slow process, it does not happen overnight and takes a lot of optimisation and monitoring efforts. Also remember, Google does not charge you for ranking on these results. This is the reason we want to influence google to identify our sites as a quality website with the help of On-page & Off-page SEO. (We will talk about that in our future posts)

Image Search Results

Visual content on your website does drive a lot of value & quality traffic. You want to be seen if your business benefits from visual content.

Video Search Results

Video is growing in triple digits and businesses are leveraging videos to drive more sales. You want to create a lot of video content and tag that content with relevant keywords that will help your business show up on video search results.

SEO visibility plan

While planning visibility for your business on Search, you want to adopt a holistic approach for your brand. As you must have realised by now that keyword research and content will drive your visibility plan, its very important to have a well researched keyword list for the most important pages on your website. This has to be backed with sound content planning. Every aspect of SEO boils down to content. To be specific, keyword-focussed-content. Here is a check-list that will help you pen down a visibility plan.

1. List down all the important URLs of your website along with keyword you want to rank for each url.
2. List down how will people on the internet find these pages? (SERP, Maps, Images, Video search)
3. Identify where is it most important for you to be seen & list down the priority level.
4. Create a content schedule around that priority level & stick to that schedule till you start ranking for the aforesaid keywords for each URL

 

Using the above simple steps you will be able to start planning for your visibility on the web. This planning is an ongoing process and will have to be fine tuned as time progresses. 

Interesting SEO Books

I have a few recommendations that will help you plan effectively for your business. Here they are...

                               

Well, we are only getting warmed up. In our upcoming posts, we will talk about On-page & Off-page optimisation factors, link building & much more. I hope you enjoyed this post. Leave your queries and comments in the comments section below & use the Contact Us form to get in touch with me with a specific doubt. 

Keep watching this space for more updates on digital marketing.

See you soon. Have a great day ahead.

Mitul