What’s Google? How the Search Engine Can Help or Hurt your Business!
Everybody knows how to search on Google. We can even Google things from our cell phones, meaning we can always access a wealth of information, no matter where we are. We search for something and it pops up. As a business owner, you want to be sure that your business shows up as a search result to a search query, but harnessing the power of Google can be tricky. Google can be a friend or a foe, it really is a double-edged sword and this article will explain why and what you can do about it.
As a business owner, you usually maintain a personal profile and a business profile, right? However, what you post under your personal profile is often visible in search results if somebody were to Google your name. If you comment on websites under your own name, those will often pop up in search results.
Your reputation, both professional and personal, is an open book for anybody who Googles it. If you have inappropriate content online, it does not matter how good of a business professional you are, it will hurt your business reputation. Think before you speak when it comes to your online presence.
You need to manage your online reputation or Google can very well hurt your business. Google yourself and see what pops up. Delete the things that can hurt your business reputation. Think before your type when posting online, and avoid creating new issues that could damage your online reputation. Your personal web reputation affects your business web reputation.
Google has changed how results are shown up as well. This is helping a lot of businesses and it is hindering a lot of businesses. The rest of the article will detail how Google can help or hurt your business because of the changes to their local search page. Google local is vital because it helps any searches relevant to your business that are in the area that the search originates from to be listed.
It goes without saying, that if you do not have a website, you will not be listed. If you have listed your business with Google Local in their directory, your chances of showing up are higher. The good news is that if you have a website that is optimized, you will be very easy to find during a Google search. The bad news is that if your website is not optimized, it might not even show on the results, no matter how good of a website it is.
So what is an optimized website? You might have heard of the term SEO, search engine optimization. SEO is how you ensure that your website is found in the Google search results. If your site is not optimized, it will be far down on the results list. So how can you optimize your site?
Is your site included in Google’s or Yahoo’s index of websites? If not, you need to submit your site to them. An indexed site will show up better in search results. You can submit your site to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl/ and for Yahoo at http://submit.search.yahoo.com.
Is your website content high quality and relevant to your clients and prospective clients? The more content you have available on your website, the more content you have available to show up in the search results. You need to have content that draws people to your site, consider having a blog on your site, or a section of informative articles.
You need to have keywords in both your web content and in your website. Keywords are the words that people will most likely be searching for if they are doing a Google search. Your keywords should be prominent in your website headlines, link text, section titles, page text, page title metadata, and the page description metadata.
Google loves links. Have a blog and update the content often and then place a link to each blog post on your website and use the desired keywords in the link text. Google gives links priority on searches and if you want your results to show, you need to have links, and a blog is a great way to do so.
Google, it is a great way to help boost your business but it can also hurt you! A non-optimized website will be ranked low on search results and an optimized site can rank highly, which is why SEO is so important. Additionally, your own reputation can hurt you, so ensure that when you are Googled, that there are no skeletons in the closet.
