Get Top Ranking on Google & Other Search Engines is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, nor has it been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Google.
Written by a Small Business owner for Small Business Owners
This SEO book is written for the layperson in an Easy to understand and Easy to read format.
It is set up like a workbook, so you can Do it Yourself or help your website designer to make sure your website reaches YOUR customers.
And once you do get top ranking - You want the searching public to pick you out of the top ten websites that are displayed on the first page in front of them. The more you are picked, the higher you will be ranked. Self fulfilling!
Google keeps track of how often browsers pick you for any particular keyword search over other websites listed on the first page of search results. Google then rewards those picked more often with higher ranking. I guess they figure that if more people are picking you, your website must be more “relevant” to the searchers keyword.
How to Get Picked From the Results Page
Make sure that your Home page has an attention-grabbing “Title” meta tag. Your website design program will have a way to insert a title for each page of your website. Every webpage should have a different title, and the title should contain your most important keyword “phrase” for that particular page.
The title of a webpage is the very first line that shows up in bold on each of the ten websites displayed on the Google search engine results page. This is the most visible line of text! The title also shows up on the very top line in your browser window (in the blue bar on Microsoft® Internet Explorer®). You only get a few words and Google truncates the rest, so play around with it.
Think of this Title meta tag as your “ATTENTION GRABBING HEADLINE” of a newspaper story. Make sure it has IMPACT!
The very next line or two under the bold “Title”, on the Google search results is usually the same as the “Description” meta tag sentence. Again, make sure it’s something that will make the searcher want to click on your link.
The HOOK: Think of this second sentence as your “Call To Action” to reel the browsers in.
On my title, my laptop stand price point of $19.99 is a good attention grabber. (And yes you can put a $ sign and numbers in your title. Just don’t try to insert these symbols in your file names.)
Chapter Action Steps / Notes
1. Title meta tag = your Headline.
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2. Description meta tag = your “Call to Action”.
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3. What tiles and descriptions are your competitors using?
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Chapter 7
Then Once They Get to Your Website
People searching (paying customers) want information and they want it fast. They don’t want to have to wade through a lot of animations, flashing things, or corny music to get it. The ultimate goal? To convert them into paying customers, supporters, or believers in your worthwhile cause.
Define: Conversion Rate – The percentage of customers who you actually “convert” to a paying customer verses the total number of visitors. Usually calculated over a certain period of time.
You want to get the visitor to hang around your site, and come back for a visit on a regular basis. This is called “Stickiness” and Google rewards for stickiness.
Define: Stickiness – The longer customers stay on your website and the more often they come back to visit, the more “Sticky” your site is.
This is not rocket science here. Design your website so it’s easy to read, uncluttered, and has a lot of white space (advice that is sometimes hard to follow – it seems like we just want to shout out our message by cramming in bunch of words). Simple really is better.
Chapter Action Steps / Notes
1. As soon as the customer lands on your webpage, does it convey the message of the keyword they typed into the search box?
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2. Is the landing page cluttered with a bunch of “flashy” stuff?
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3. Is your text easy to read?
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Chapter 8
Generally Accepted Good Business Practices for Internet Retailing
A positive user experience can improve your ranking as well. It has the potential to increase your incoming links – people like referring a positive experience and might reward you with a link to your site.
A wise old website designer once said: “The three most important things to a website visitor are: Trust, Trust , and Trust”
Some of the following tips are a function of the shopping cart service, and are well beyond the scope of most small business owners to incorporate themselves – including me. However, you should be aware of these practices and make sure that your shopping cart and website design incorporates them. Most shopping cart services are purchased “off the shelf”. Therefore, knowing what to look for in the service helps you choose a good one.
Define: Shopping Cart – A shopping cart is a “turnkey” third party service that will provide you with “Web Pages” formatted to take the customer’s order, and the customer’s payment method. Once your customer clicks the “Add to Cart” button, they are actually leaving your website and going to the secure shopping cart website/server, without even knowing it.
The shopping cart service provides the website programming code and a way to relay the customer’s credit card (or PayPal) information to your Merchant Account. Your merchant account then transfers the money to your Bank Account. Usually your merchant account will have certain “approved” shopping carts that it works with. A good shopping cart will allow the pages to have the same look and feel as your main website, so the customers feel like they have never actually “left” your site.
Having a third party handle the shopping cart helps relieve you of tremendous liability (ask your attorney). You don’t want to store your customers' credit card information and have to worry about someone hacking into your website and stealing it.
“Building Trust”
Feature Testimonials and Product Reviews
What better way to build trust than from other customers and editorial reviews.
Prominently Feature Your Phone Number
and contact information, especially on the checkout page. Customers find this very reassuring.
Get a Toll Free Number
They are fairly inexpensive these days. A good one will only charge you a small base rate and then a per minute charge. Also list your local number (with area code) – it reassures customers that your business is located in the same area they are in. More than one location? – list all the phones numbers.
Include a Physical Address
on your contact us page, not just a Post Office Box.
Include an “About Us” page
linked from your home page.
Reassure them with your Return Policy
Most of your smarter competitors offer a 30 day return policy. Most credit card merchant accounts require you to offer a 30 day return policy. This is a good business practice and you will want to feature it in a prominent location near the “Add to Cart” button and during the checkout process.
Reassure Them About Your Privacy Policy with a Link to it on Every Page
Define: Privacy Policy – a statement or promise by the website owner not to share (or in any way give out) the visitors’ private information (like email addresses or phone numbers). It’s also good business practice to state that you will not use their information to contact them (without their permission), unless it is for shipment or pertinent product information like a recall.
Tell Them That Your Shopping Cart is on a Secure Server
Even though most every shopping cart is hosted on a secure server, it’s reassuring to let them know that once they click “add to cart” and start the checkout process, they will be entering their sensitive information on a secure server.
Define: Secure Server – You can always tell when you are on a “Secure Server” by the website address. The HTTP://www.your-name.com changes to HTTPS://www.your-name.com. The “S” in the HTTPS:// designates a secure server. Secure servers are very restrictive and held to very tight security standards, meaning hackers have a difficult time hacking into them and stealing sensitive information like your customers credit card information!
Use Secure Server Certificates from Well Known Companies like VeriSign
Don’t Make People Register on Your Site
People are in a hurry and you should be respectful of their time. Let them buy the item and get going. After all, you are not Amazon or eBay®.
Don’t Make People Fill out a Form Just to Send You an Email
Don’t make customers fill out a form just to email you from your contact page. Give them an email link, like info@keynamics.com. Do you really like filling out those forms yourself when you just want to ask a quick question?
Ensure that the “Flow” of the Checkout is Logical
You don’t want customers to get lost or confused, especially when they are trying to give you their money!
Provide High-Quality, Large Images
High speed broadband is so common now, slow loading websites and large images are less and less of an issue than they were before. Furthermore, a good image editing program like Adobe® Photoshop® can reduce the size of a large picture without reducing the quality.
Put Product Images on your Shopping Cart Landing Page
An image of the product they are buying reassures customers that they are ordering the right product. This improves their comfort levels before even starting the actual checkout process.
Define: Shopping Cart Landing Page – The page that visitors go to just after clicking the “Add to Cart” button. This page “holds” all of the items (like a shopping cart) until the shopper is ready to pay or “check out”. Customers have the option to pay immediately after adding one single item to the cart, or they can go back to your main website and add many more items to the cart before proceeding to the final checkout and payment.
Allow the customer to “Return to Shopping” after they land on the “Shopping Cart Landing Page”
Most good shopping carts have this feature prominently displayed. It’s a great way to increase “Add On” sales.
Increase Sales with Related Items on Main Website Pages and Especially on the Checkout Landing Page
“May we suggest this XYZ, to go with your ABC”
Be careful with this and any other promotions on your website. You don’t want to deter customers from their focus on buying what they intended to buy. For example, a “Pop Up” would be a very bad idea anywhere on your website.
Reduce Abandon Carts with Reassurance
At every step or required action (like asking for their email addresses), reassure them about your privacy policy, or reassure them with your return policy, warranty, etc.
Define: Abandon Carts – Abandon carts are unfortunate and very common among internet shoppers. Basically, you’ve succeeded in getting found from your high ranking, the customer has chosen an item, they start the checkout process in your shopping cart, and then for some reason they just exit your whole website. Some folks are just curious about shipping and getting familiar with your purchase process, possibly to return later to complete the purchase. But most, unfortunately are lost forever. What a shame, after all of the effort to get them to your site and choose an item - then to lose them.
Display the Shipping Amount / Options on the Checkout Landing Page
Don’t make them go half way through the checkout process just to find out the shipping amount, or the methods you offer to ship. Most shopping carts can “estimate” this at the checkout landing page for each type of shipping service you offer.
Don’t Make the Customer Repeat Typing Entries
Typically your shopping cart will ask for the “billing” address and the “shipping” address. Many times the two addresses are different, but if they are the same, allow the customer to just check a box that says it’s the same. Use this for email addresses as well, if you ask for it more than once.
Place the “Add to Cart” Button in Obvious Places
Don’t make it hard for your customers to instantly click and make a purchase. Put the “Add to Cart” button right by the product image. After all, you will have repeat customers who come back to your website, knowing exactly what they want, and wanting to place the order ASAP.
It’s also a good practice to have both the item and the “Add to Cart” button visible on the first or “top” screen. The idea is to be “above the fold” and not have to scroll down to see this.
Allow People to Easily Go Back to the Previous Page Using the “Back Button” to Correct Mistakes
Some shopping carts lose everything if you hit the back button and the customer has to start all over. Many will just “Abandon” the checkout process all together if this happens.
Put a Search Box on Every Page of your Website
Visitors probably found your site by typing a keyword into a search box. Let them continue the search on your website.
Your Contact Information, Privacy Policy and Return Policy Should be HIGHLY Visible on the Checkout Landing Page
The trust factor is never more important than at the checkout landing page.
Never Let Customers Actually Leave Your Website When They Click on an External Link (to another website)
This can be accomplished by making sure that these outbound links open a new (and smaller) browser window, thus keeping your website open in the background.
Never Ever Disable the “Back Button” on Your Website
This is so annoying, as it looses all of the web visitors’ previous website “surfing” history, making them start their search process all over again. You are being held “hostage” on the website. When this happens to me, I vow never to visit that website nor do business with them again! I bet I am not alone.
Chapter Action Steps / Notes
How can I build trust on my website?
Copyright © 2008 Greg Bright
Get Top Ranking on Google & Other Search Engines is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, nor has it been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Google.
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