How do I get more clients through my website?

The short answer is you need to present your website for your ideal customer!

How would you do that? Firstly you need to know who your target market is? If you aren't sure, it would pay to grab a pen and paper and brainstorm why it is you are in business and who you want your business to serve.  This process alone will save you a lot of time and money down the track.

It will prevent you chasing butterflies and create boundaries that help you hit the mark with your marketing efforts!

When you know who you are marketing to, you can start the process of SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation because when you optimise your website to your clients, you actually optimise it to Google simultaneously. 

Most of your potential customers will be searching for what you offer through an online search engine called Google. (95% of web users search on Google search)

Applying SEO to your website means you have a higher chance of your website content being one of the first results the user sees when looking for a product or service you offer.

Let's say you are roof tiler in Sydney and you have a potential customer looking for your services through Google. They type in 'Sydney roof tilers' to find a suitable supplier. Here is what they see...

The first page results are pretty important as you can imagine. The first few results on that page are where the action happens. You know yourself, you probably only consider clicking the first or second result you see.

The pictured results are separated into two kinds of results - Paid results and Organic results (or natural results).

Organic results

Organic results is website content that ranks naturally in order of relevance to what the user has searched for. This is because Google sees the content as the most accurate result to display according to the search term 'Sydney Roof Tiler'.

Paid results

Paid results are the 'paid ads' that sit at the top and right of the page. Google has placed these ads there because the search term contains the same keywords that are used in the Adwords campaign. These Adwords are one form of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and a great way to see page one results in the short term.

Organic results are ultimately where any website owner wants their content to be though. Approximately 94% of users on Google search will click on organic search results opposed to 6% who will click on to the paid ad!

So how do you get your website to rank high on Google's organic search results?

Let's use the analogy of a body builder who wants to be a certain weight for a body building championship coming up; there are two ways to get the results you want. The ethical way or the unethical way. The ethical way is to train hard and eat the right kind of foods. The unethical way is to take steroids and cheat to gain instant results. Ultimately, you will be disqualified from the competition if you are found to be using steroids. The same principal applies to your website's SEO service.

There is a right way and a wrong way to apply SEO. You may of heard of Black Hat (Bad) or White Hat (Good) techniques.

That's not to say paid results are bad, not at all. But there are unfortunately no shortcuts to getting page one results, especially if you have a lot of competition, like roof tiling. Improvements however, can be made straight away.

Here is a paraphrased shortlist on how to improve your search engine results by Google.

• Build pages and content for users not robots
• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and clear call to action
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content
• Use keywords to create descriptive, human friendly content

Other great SEO techniques

Keyword Research
Researching specific words and phrases that potential leads may be typing into Google to look for your services. What are your clients typing in to the search bar when they need your service? Then including these words and phrases in your website and social posts in a logical manner. Google can then see the relevance of your content for the users who are searching.

Link Building
Consider a spider web with your website at the centre. The more threads or links to the centre, the more opportunity Google has to find your website when retrieving that information to the user. So finding relevant partner websites that could then link to your website. For example, a home improvement website might have a link to your roof tiling website.

Social Posting
Carrying on from link building, a great way to get links out there is to post regularly on Social Media. Using applications like Facebook and Twitter. You never know who could share your content and who will see it.

I know it can be a daunting task to do SEO on your own. But if you keep building your website with integrity and thinking about what your customer needs, over time you will see the results. I also recommend seeking the help of a professional too.

There are many SEO providers out there who can do the heavy lifting like the above mentioned, but make sure you use one that has your best interests in mind. Remember, because the nature of the internet is so volatile, no SEO provider can guarantee page one results on Google. Be weary of those that do!

In closing, it's great to have a beautiful website online, but unless people know it's there, it isn't going to profit anyone.

Speak soon!