Be found on Google

Have you ever tried looking for a needle in a haystack? No, neither have I, but to be honest, getting your website found and ranked in search results might just as well be the same experience.

The race to be seen on search and get to that all important ‘page one’ of Google, MSN, Yahoo – is getting tougher and tougher and if you can’t be found on search – then getting and finding customers suddenly becomes a one in a million chance.

The upside of this is – you don’t have to pay to be seen these days. At a not so recent session the BT Tradespace team attended on SEO, one fact we picked up was that 72 percent of Google searchers prefer organic (natural) search results to paid listings.

So what’s the key to search engine success?

There are no hard and fast rules that will guarantee you permanent search success – but if there’s one certainty with search – it’s the fact that search engines like Google reward sites that have good, qualitative, relevant content that is regularly updated.

If you could hold on to that thought and live by it – you’ll soon reap the rewards in search not only on search engine results but on BT Tradespace too.

With that in mind, here are our top tips to help you give your Tradespace the best chance of being found on search.

1. Choose your words and URL well

We’ve all heard of keywords but spamming your Tradespace will lose you customers and credibility. What counts is to hone in on the keywords that are most relevant to your business and that you know your customers are looking for. The same applies to your Tradespace URL.

For example if ‘homemade cakes’ is your business and is a frequently searched for term, then using these words in the relevant areas like your URL will help search engines associate the search term and your business. We recently had a good news story from a Tradespacer who applied this methodology to his website and got to number one on Google for his selected keywords. Why not see what search terms your customers are using and do the same?

2. What does your description say about you?

We have a lot of Tradespacers either cutting or pasting their ‘About us’ descriptions or just leaving it at a sentence. Wrong move when it comes to getting customers and being picked up by search.

Customers like to get a sense of your business and who’s behind it plus search engines will pick up on keywords you’ve used in your description. So update your ‘About us’ description to talk about your business (person to person) and include key details like your location within it. Remember, your ‘About Us’ description not only appears on your Tradespace but on the main pages of our website.

3. Is your featured image and logo a blank?

Selling online is all about building trust so it’s the small things like putting a face to the name that will make a difference. Your ‘Featured image’ is the main image that shows on our website when your business is displayed. It’s the first thing your customers see when they search or look up the categories and so upload one that really speaks for your business and attracts those leads.

4. Blog, blog, blog

We love blogging at BT Tradespace and we have good reason to do so because blogging about your business, your products and services, your industry, businesses you work/network with, even about FAQs you’ve had – will not only establish a conversation with your customers, it will help build good relevant content that search engines love.

Our research shows that the top three Tradespaces driving natural search have 400 blog posts each. That’s not to say you have to have 400 posts to make it to the top – it’s to say – blogging even once every week or fortnight will help your ranking. Here are some things you can blog about and here’s why blogging is good for business.

5. Content is ‘King’

Whoever made the statement knew what they were talking about. Blogging may be the simple, easy way to building your Tradespace content and being picked up by search engines, but search is changing, the more content you have the better your chances of making it to Page one of Google or any other engine.

The 10 most visited Tradespaces have added at least two different types of content on their site. Content could be your description, your blog posts, your products and services, your photos, video, podcasts… so even if you add one more photo to your Tradespace now with a relevant description, it’s helping your search engine ranking.

One thing to bear in mind is that when adding items like video or photos, make sure to give it a relevant description and use the keywords field to associate relevant keywords to that item.

6. Love your links

Think of linking as people rating your business as one they want to be associated with. So from the point of view of your customer, it builds credibility. But from the search engine’s point – it increases your ranking.

So when writing your blogs make sure you use examples and link to other Tradespaces you rate. You can also use the nifty ‘Businesses we like’ feature to link to other Tradespaces that you like. Encourage your Tradespace peers to do the same for you and link to your site to build a relevant network of links. Another new feature we’ll soon be launching is the ‘visit me on BT Tradespace’ badge which you can use on your own website and other locations to get people to visit your site.

7. Let Google know you exist

Once you’ve got a great, well populated, working Tradespace that you’re using well – submit your site to Google and Yahoo to index so they know your Tradespace exists. Plus, you can also help your chances of being found on local search results by adding yourself to Google Local.

Of course, these are just the basics of giving your Tradespace the best chance possible of being found on Google but the nature of the web is ever-changing so for more updates and advice visit our How-to section for more tips to come…