By now is it generally accepted that every business has a website, or is planning towards getting a website.
With so many businesses online how do you get noticed?
Google is fast becoming the first port of call for ideas or to check word of mouth recommendations. Because people are lazy, if you do not get listed in the first couple pages of Google results you will not be seen at all.
Here are 5 of Novanate’s tips for getting a better ranking on Google. There is never a guarantee that your business will be listed first on Google, but this guide will give you the best chance possible. I will use the example of a busy inner city pub to illustrate the point.
1) Keep your content fresh. Google likes to see that sites are not out of date. You should take the time to update information on your site every single month, fortnightly is better but monthly at a minimum, this could be updating gig guides, adding recent photos, or changing some menu items.
2) Incoming Links. Google works on reputation, if other quality websites link to your website they infer some reputation to your site. In effect you can become cool by association. For a pub or a bar it is about exploiting contacts, any band that you have play at your venue should add a link from their website back to yours, suppliers could also be encouraged to link back to your website.
3) Descriptive Names. Ensure that your URL’s and page titles make sense and describe what the page is. Google reads pages in much the same way as your audience do, and if the information is too hard to find Google will give up and so will your audience. The ‘about us’ page should be located at www.yourvenue.com.au/aboutus.html and the title should be ‘Your Venue – About Us’. This format ensures that information is easy to find.
4) Don’t use 100% Flash. Flash looks pretty, but it makes it very hard for search engines like Google to find the content. If Google cannot find your website then new patrons probably wont find it either, so it doesn’t matter how pretty it is. Hot pictures will make a hotel site look just as good and much easier to find.
5) Describe Images. A picture paints a thousand words, however Google doesn’t see it that way. Pictures makes things look nicer and requires less reading. For Google to acknowledge images they need to have descriptions applied to each in the coding. A pub that puts up an image of crowd could label it as ‘venue crowd’ or to be more effective ‘Melbourne’s cool crowd relaxing with beers on a Friday night at the venue.’ Those few extra words make a big difference to Google.
Novanate’s Search Engine Friendly CMS adheres to the above 5 rules and will help your business be noticed online. Check out our Search Engine Optimisation services here.
