Search Engine Optimization

Most of your customers will find your website through a search engine, like Google Search. For small businesses word of mouth is still a vital part of your marketing however I wouldn’t be guessing if I said that most people would still Google search your business name and not type in your web address directly.

For those that don’t know your business name they might search for your products, finding all your competitors in the process.

So ensuring Google can find your website is obviously important. Ensuring that your business website appears at the top of the search results list is something that many businesses spend a lot of money refining what is commonly known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Shock automatically manages many of the SEO requirements such as fast pages, designed for desktops and mobiles, automatic image tags, well formatted pages and contact information.

But let me describe a few tips that you can do that will ensure your business starts rising up that search results list.

Frequently updated quality content

Shock has been designed to make adding content as simple as possible. If you have an image and the text then it can take less than a minute to update your website.

How often is “frequently?” Well a rule of thumb for a business website is at least once a week. Search engines (and customers) love new content and will typically visit your site at least once a week to check. Customer testimonials are easy to add but may not come in every week. Adding a News or Blog section will allow you to share news with your customers more often.

Similar to images though, if you don’t have time or you can’t produce a well written and edited piece of content at the moment then don’t post anything. We would recommend you set up a schedule, in the same way you probably schedule your invoices and payments.

Well written content

If you know your customers then it’s not difficult to communicate with them. Adding content to your website is similar to a chat with a customer except you’re just writing it down (and getting someone to proofread and edit it).

Thinking of it this way will ensure it stays relevant which is important for search engines as well. They also like repetition of the same terms. So when you’re describing your services don’t use jargon, use the same terms in your customer testimonials and news posts.

The biggest search engine rank increase will occur if other websites link to your site. You can ask others to refer to your site but if you pay it forward and link to other sites first then others will be inclined to do the same for you. Shock has an option in a post description to include a link. I suggest you use your browser to go to the page in question and then copy the address and paste it into the Shock post link window.

A strong page introduction

When a customer visits your website for the first time they’ll want to know that they’ve found the place they were looking for. Your logo should help them but they’ll be drawn to your tagline on the cover image. Ensure you have a strong and well written tagline and site introduction. These can be changed in Shock > Menu > Introductory text.