Web designers often sell SEO (search engine optimisation) to help you get to the top of Google. This optimises your website so that search engines interpret it in the way you want them to give you the best chance of being number one.
This is relatively simple in some cases, but depending on the industry and the competition can be tricky and expensive in others.
Luckily this is not the only way of occupying the front page of Google.
As of today, for example, the term “web designers Salisbury” has 17 listings on the first page of Google [1] and we occupy 5 (29%) of them. Even better than that, we have 3 out of the possible 9 listings (33%) of the first screen [2] of Google results.
So how do we occupy around a 3rd of Google’s front page when only one of our entries is achieved through organic SEO (search engine optimisation)?
1. Organic SEO
Firstly, we’re actually 2nd with organic search engine optimisation, that is essentially what is on or linking to our website. But don’t worry, this jumps around a lot and we will be working to get back to the top soon. This is highlighted red on the results and is where many web agencies stop their marketing.
2. Google Local
If you look at the green entry you’ll see we are first for Google Local, which is Google’s own business directory. This is a free service, and we are performing well on here because we have optimised our entry details, have a central postcode, and have had 15 perfect reviews from clients.
3. Google AdWords
The blue entry is essentially paid for advertising, also called PPC (pay per click). We essentially create an advert and pay Google each time a user clicks on the advert. If done correctly this can be a great way of generating leads and can be very profitable.
Note that the horizontal black line represents the ‘fold’ on my computer screen, i.e. what I see without scrolling, and it’s apparent that we are occupying a third (33%) of this.
4. Other Google Channels
Below the fold you’ll see two purple entries. Google look at far more than your web site’s content and these entries come from my personal and our company’s Google Plus pages. This is a free social media service (similar to Facebook) offered by Google. We don’t use it for chatting, but when we post news articles like this to our website we put links to them on our Google Plus pages. We don’t do this for users, more for Google. It makes sense that they will read and index content on their own systems, and as Google Plus is linked to our website, and to Google Local, it all ties together nicely and as you can see gives us two more entries on the first page of Google.
Google don’t stop there. Did you know that Google own YouTube? Providing it is labelled correctly video content can also appear on the first page, as can products on shopping feeds for example.
Optimising a website for search engines is a great way of getting to number one, but on this example even being in the 1st organic position would result in us being in 7th position on the screen, rather than what we have which is 1st, 4th, 8th, 14th and 17th. Sometimes just SEO isn’t the answer.
If you need help getting to the top of Google, by any means, then please get in touch and we’ll let you know the best way.
We are Webbed Feet UK, we are experts in online marketing.
[1] excluding the right hand sponsored adverts
[2] on my machine running Google Chrome with 1920 x 1080 resolution