How to Impress Google & Rise to Page One

It all begins with understanding Google's purpose.
 

Google's Purpose: To make the web a better place for the user

The team at Tomahawk want to help you get on Google's good side. If you impress Google, your business's website can be on page one when someone searches for your relevant keywords.

There's no such thing as a free lunch though! Your website won't receive love from Google simply by virtue of existing.

Optimising your website for search engines (also known as SEO) involves a number of tasks and processes. The best thing is you can do SEO yourself, it just takes a little bit of understanding and your time.

Here are the 5 ways you can DIY SEO!

#1: Impress Google with Keywords - Choosing and Using Them.

• Decide on which keywords you would like your business to be found for BEFORE you write any copy for your website or blog.
• What's a keyword, you ask? Put yourself into your customers' shoes and imagine what words or phrases they might use when searching for your product or service. If you are targeting local people, you might consider using city or town specific keywords. If you're targeting international people, include country specific keywords. Google goes loco for location.
• Once you have an idea about what keywords you want to use, do some research on how competitive your keywords are, and how likely they are to be searched. You can do this by Googling 'google keyword tool'. It is an easy and free tool that provides great insight into search terms.
• Make sure the content (any text, images, or videos) across your website aligns with and includes these keywords. That being said, please don't stuff your content with keywords it has to read well too, or Google will blacklist it. A perfect example of what not to do:

#2: Make your website attractive to both humans and search engines.

Incorporating the same keywords you've used in your content also in your Title, Description Tags, and your website URLs across your website helps Google to confirm that your website's relevance to the search 'trumpets in New Zealand'. You can edit all three properties (Title, Description, URL) in your website's Content Management System.

• Ensure your website is tested before it goes live you need to find and fix little errors such as a broken link, the domain name, the loading speed of a webpage, browser compatibility, and formatting issues. User-friendly websites are favoured by Google.
• Structure information on your website so that Google (and your website visitors) can easily locate information which is relevant to them. Include a site map in your website - this cuts down navigation time, increases accessibility, and keeps both Google and your visitors happy. Google doesn't like it when you make your visitors think too hard.
• If this section seems all too technical to you, find a reliable web partner to help you out!

#3: Quality original website content which is regularly updated.

• Believe it or not, readers will leave your website if they read content that is constantly misspelt or uses poor grammar. If you're not confident with your language proficiency, please employ a copywriter to help you generate quality, engaging writing.
• Don't plagiarise. Google is all-seeing, and knows when you have copied content straight from another webiste, or good ol' Wikipedia.
• Update your website content regularly so that your visitors will have fresh material to read when they revisit. This shows Google that you are the authority on your product and you care about your customers.

#4: Building a brilliant reputation.

• Use blogs to tell people about your news, your products, your services. Writing a blog shows Google fresh content, and each blogs registers as another page - Google loves lots of relevant page content. Bonus points if your blog gets forwarded or shared! Don't forget to include relevant keywords in your Tags.
• Build your reputation through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, YouTube.

   

  • Start engaging conversations with your followers on Facebook and Twitter.
  • Ask them to share your website with others.
  • Encourage testimonials/ review of their experience on relevant review sites
  • Incoming links power up your site - think of them like a list of references on your CV. They need to be from both relevant and authoritative sites like newzealand.com, other accommodation listing sites, activity providers and other related businesses. This tells Google that you are recognised as an expert. Oh - and producing press releases and news releases are a great way to get links from influential, respected sites like the New Zealand Herald or Tourism websites.

#5: Monitoring, Responding, Fine-Tuning.

• Take the time to read and digest the monthly reports the Tomahawk Marketing Team generates for you. Use the information we provide to update your website appropriately, and let us know if you have any questions or need assistance.
• Keep on top of industry updates so that you can adjust your keywords if a keyword related to your industry suddenly becomes extremely popular.
  • For example: From 'waikato tours' to 'middle earth new zealand tours'

Final Thoughts

• SEO is an ongoing process - you won't be able to see overnight results, but if you persevere, your website will certainly make gains.
• The Tomahawk marketing team are 100% behind you in this process - drop us an email if you want to find out more about the craft of SEO.
• Please note that SEO is not the same as Search Engine Marketing (paid Internet advertising such as Facebook Ads or Google AdWords). SEO improves your organic search results, which can't be bought, while Google AdWords is a paid service (see below).