If your website is not listed on the natural lists created by search engines when potential clients are trying to find a specific product or service, then your website is not achieving the potential opportunities that are available to it. By natural lists, I mean the non-sponsored and advertised links on the top and right side of the search engine results page. Because you could be missing out on potential sales opportunities by not being listed on the natural lists, I have put together a couple of tips that will help you increase your rankings!

First off, a quick definition of Search Engine Optimization or SEO is in order. SEO is the practice of using a range of techniques in order to improve how well a site or page gets listed or ranked in search engines for particular search topics. Some are more costly than others, for instance pay-per-click marketing campaigns. But there are some ways that won’t cost you a thing or are relatively inexpensive in helping to drive your ranking up!

1. Is your website content search engine friendly?

If you already have a website, or if you are just starting to create a new site, it is important to make sure your content is search engine friendly. What I mean by this is that you can help increase your rankings in search engines by including specific targeted keywords that might be used when searching for your company’s industry.

For example, if I own a catering company, I might consider using common search words like “food” “catering” “service” and “events” in my text. Now my site has a better chance of making a natural list if someone is searching for “catered events.”

2. Are you linked in?

Link building is a natural SEO technique that involves requesting and submitting quality backlinks from external sources. Backlinks are links that are found on another website leading to yours; they are the clickable text that allows you to move from one website to another.

Does your business have any preferred vendors? If so, include them on your website and have them do the same for you. This can play a critical role in achieving a good natural search engine position. The more and higher quality backlinks you have linking to your website, the higher your website will rank in the search engines. It also encourages more traffic to your website from people actually clicking on the links!

3. List your business online!

This tip piggy-backs off of the above one. Most of us have heard of Yelp!, Kudzo.com, Citysearch and so forth. Whether or not you see a value in these user-rating websites, one thing you cannot deny about them is that they play a critical role in SEO. We learned above that the more external websites your business is linked to, the better. This applies to user-rating websites such as Yelp! and Citysearch. I have listed a few key outlets that are extremely beneficial to your business for two reasons. One, they allow your consumers to rate the quality of your business for others to learn more about you. And two, they naturally increase your SEO rankings. When you Google “hair salons in San Diego,” a link to Yelp! might appear that takes you to all of the San Diego hair salons listed on their website. Guess what happens if your hair salon is not on Yelp!? That’s right, you are not listed and your SEO has not naturally increased. But if you did create a Yelp! account, users can see your listing and read reviews about your salon.

Beneficial online listings for your business:

www.yelp.com
www.kudzu.com
www.mojopages.com
www.linkedin.com