We all know how Covid-19 has changed the face of online shopping and not just for retail, but searching for menus, prices and also services.
A survey of New Zealand consumers from Shopify in November 2021 demonstrated the evolving online habits and preferences with an increase of 88% of people saying Covid-19 would impact the way they shop and search in the future with a clear increase of 60% in online activity.
But with over 5.6 billion searches through Google alone per day and over 4,000,000 results as average for keywords how do you reach your customers and increase your online local presence?
Here are a few key tips you can do yourself and how Linku2 can also support your business.
Google Rankings
Did you know 93% of online experiences start with a search engine and Google dominates over 90% of the search engine market share. Our focus at Linku2 is on Google rankings.
The further a website/page position down in Google the smaller the chances it will be seen by a potential customer. Thus, ranking high in Google is critical and click through rates become virtually non-existent once a page is no longer ranking on the first page (top 10) of search results.
As the following shows top positions on the search engine result pages receive the majority of impressions and clicks, so ranking in these top positions can result in significant traffic increases for your website/page.
So how do you get to the top of Google …
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Explanation: The key component to rankings is SEO.SEO has been adopted as an online marketing strategy because of its effectiveness. It is the optimization of your site/page and process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial or natural search results on search engines. Organic traffic is earned and not paid for and therefore more authentic, achieving higher click through rates and gains more trust than paid adverts.
Optimisation is achieved through various tools including -
- Keyword use
- Schema
- On-page SEO (optimized keyword content)
- Off-page SEO (authentic and valuable backlinks, social media and brand promotion)
- Determining user intent
- Optimizing page load speed
As well as the above you can track, monitor, and subsequently influence your rankings and traffic by also using the following rank influencers of -
- Google Tag Manager
- Google My Business
- Core Web Vitals
- Search Console
- Google Trends
While the benefits of SEO are vast, some of the top benefits include Increased traffic
- Trackable and quantifiable ROI (Return on Investment) results
- Cost-effective marketing strategy
- Improves and increases site usability
- Brand awareness
- Boosted credibility
- Gives you a competitive advantage
- Helps reach a larger audience
- Improves User Engagement rate
A full explanation of the above benefits can be found in our The Benefits of SEO article.
You can undertake SEO by yourself although it can be a time consuming exercise. Alternatively you could employ an SEO agency. The average cost of an SEO agency is around $2,500 pm.
Alternatively you could take a Linku2 SMART Plan. WE undertake a full SEO programme for your online Linku2 page, and pages for your links at a considerably lower cost but with high achieving results!
Linku2 suggestions:
Linku2 SMART Sponsor and Deluxe Plans give you an onsite page which is customized and optimized for your business.
This page can be a useful keyword rich summary of your business, packed with authentic backlinks. On- and Off-page SEO tools, optimized for page speed and tracked or linked through all the above-listed rank influencers.
Linku2 support staff are trained in SEO practices and one of our core values include the desire to get a client’s Linku2 onsite page and/or links on pages within the top 8 rankings of Google’s page 1, with the ultimate goal of achieving No 1 or, even better, a Google rich snippet. Rich Snippets (also known as “Rich Results”) are normal Google search results with additional data displayed. This extra data is usually pulled from Structured Data found in a page’s HTML. Rich Snippet results are more eye-catching than normal search results… which can lead to a higher organic CTR
They understand and have a customized page set up for schema. Schema is a semantic vocabulary of code that was created through the collaborative efforts of Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex. This mutually accepted language allows webmasters to implant schema code within their HTML that will be recognized across all the major search platforms. The implementation of schema gives you an opportunity to be eligible to obtain rich snippets bringing your page content on the top of SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).
Talk to us today about getting your links to the top of Google’s search rankings and reaching your customers more easily online.
Email: admin@linku2.co.nz