Hitting Page 1 on Google Just Got Harder

Google recently made some profound changes to its SERPs, or Search Engine Results Pages for those of us who don’t do Geek-Speak.

As you may have noticed, a search for a particular company, product or service can now bring up perhaps just two or three results on page one, set under the three PPC ( Pay Per Click ) advertisements. Each result can be split into as many as twelve sub-sections, which Google search spiders scan and rate for relevance and popularity within the website.

You may see more multi-url page results from one company, depending on your browser

Google’s argument is that the new site links SERP display offers more relevant results, so for example if you typed in `Find car servicing in Cheshire’ you might find say three results from dealers, with their `Service & Repair,’ `Tyres and Brakes’ or `Winter Service Offer’ sub-pages featuring highly.

That’s great, except this new SERP display naturally rewards websites which have a variety of pages, built and updated by SEO professionals and perhaps using marketing support to help drive traffic to particular pages within their main website via social media.

All that is expensive and time-consuming for many small businesses and Source PR reckons some smaller businesses might lose out with these changes. Fact is, it will be harder to get on page one – especially above the fold – on Google if you only have say a basic 6 or 7 page website and a limited web development and marketing budget.

Let’s say you do car servicing as an independent garage in Cheshire. If you have a basic website with all the right info, photos tagged with keywords, sitemap, strong H1 header description, regular news items which aren’t just pasted from an aggregated news source, but feature original copy etc, then you will probably still struggle to get anywhere near page one.

The reality is that the big boys, with the big websites, are now more likely to appear on position one, page one, of Google’s SERPs under the new system. So what’s the solution? Oh yes, a Google Adwords campaign…of course!

However, we at Source PR think differently. Here are a few online marketing tips for smaller businesses that haven’t got time, or money, to chase that Google page one place.

1. Facebook offers viral word-of-mouth for consumer products & services. The hosting is free, you essentially build your own site, and you may find that Facebook ad costs are lower than Google ad rates. Some well-taken photos and relevant, human-friendly text can have a big impact on Facebook.
2. B2B business? Try LinkedIn; establish your own company pages, update them, link your personal updates to Twitter and each time you plan to attend a trade show, launch a product or change a supplier contract, use LinkedIn for information, contacts and advice. The great thing about LinkedIn is that it allows you build a local or industry-specific network, and if your website offers unique, interactive content, then LinkedIn can help drive the `right’ visitors to your home page. Sometimes quality wins over quantity – a fact of business life that Google Analytics can never measure accurately.
3. Use the 80/20 rule wisely. There’s an old saying in business that 80% of your revenue probably comes from 20% of your customer base, so keep in touch with those regular buyers. Email interesting page links out via a newsletter, offer a VIP landing page within your Facebook site, with exclusive deals or competitions for your best customers – reward loyalty, it goes a long way in business. Offer to `Groupon’ your online marketing activity with small business in your sector, especially if you all attend a specific show or use a leading trade publication – did you know that ASDA began as a dairy farmers association? There’s real buying power in co-operation and that can allow smaller brands to get a bigger bang per buck.

4. Tell your story, be your own media star. It’s something we all see on Dragon’s Den, or watch on The Apprentice – the back story behind someone’s success, the journey. You can always get media coverage if you have an interesting success story to tell, papers love `Rags to Riches Boss Signs £10m Deal,’ or `Brit Boffin Invents new Widget,’ type features. So never be afraid to tell your own personal business story, before you try to sell your product. Tell people what inspired you to go into business, how you did it, the obstacles you overcame, and you will get media attention. Here’s an example featuring Mark Ellis from Ellis Whittam.

Online business is changing rapidly, which makes it hard to keep pace with the stream of changes in SEO, but there’s more to SEO than simply aiming for position one, page one, on Google. As more people use social media, our `likes’ are becoming our links and where our eyes go, our money follows…