There is little argument as to the value of the internet for businesses, especially small to medium size businesses who have a chance to reach a much larger audience than their geographical location allows.
How do SMEs take advantage of this opportunity? The internet is a big place and there are not only lots of other SMEs competing too, but lots of huge organisations with deeper pockets. Where do you start?
Let’s take a look at the best places to start.
Firstly, one of the main drivers of traffic to your website will be through search. This can include Google, Yahoo and Bing but let’s be honest, it’s pretty much all about Google with their huge market share. But you shouldn’t ignore other search engines because they can still send potential customers to your website. For the purposes of this article though, I’ll focus mainly on Google.
There are two main ways to drive search traffic to your website:
Organic search (also known as natural search)
Paid search (also known as PPC which stands for pay-per-click)
As mentioned, there are hundreds of signals that Google look at to determine who appears at the top of organic search results and some of these aren’t in your control. But there are three main areas that are in your control and that you should spend time working on.
1 – The technical performance of your website
2 – The content on your website
3 – Links from other websites to yours
How do SMEs take advantage of this opportunity? The internet is a big place and there are not only lots of other SMEs competing too, but lots of huge organisations with deeper pockets. Where do you start?
Let’s take a look at the best places to start.
Firstly, one of the main drivers of traffic to your website will be through search. This can include Google, Yahoo and Bing but let’s be honest, it’s pretty much all about Google with their huge market share. But you shouldn’t ignore other search engines because they can still send potential customers to your website. For the purposes of this article though, I’ll focus mainly on Google.
There are two main ways to drive search traffic to your website:
Organic search (also known as natural search)
Paid search (also known as PPC which stands for pay-per-click)
As mentioned, there are hundreds of signals that Google look at to determine who appears at the top of organic search results and some of these aren’t in your control. But there are three main areas that are in your control and that you should spend time working on.
1 – The technical performance of your website
2 – The content on your website
3 – Links from other websites to yours