SEO Made Simple: Key Google Search Features Explained

The internet is one of the most effective marketing tools available to businesses in the modern day. It can be used as a means to create a virtual shop window for your business, products, and services, that people can peruse before deciding whether to step inside or not. 

 

By utilising the likes of social media and Google, you can promote your business to the masses. One of the most effective ways of doing this is through search engine optimisation (more commonly referred to as SEO). This is where businesses utilise keywords on their website, which means when they are searched, their business comes up. This can range from general terms regarding industry to more local SEO, such as the area a business operates in. 

 

There are also Google Search Engine Results Pages features (otherwise known as SERPs) which are results on Google that are not generated organically. These include the likes of paid advertising and other means. 

 

This post will go into more detail about how you can create SEO optimised content and use SERPs in order to increase the amount of reach that your business has. 

There are many different tactics and rules to keep in mind when you are creating SEO content: 

 

For this practice, you need to be putting yourself in the mind of your consumer. This allows you to properly consider what they will likely be searching for when they require the services of your business and what kind of promoted content will draw them to your website. 

 

When you have an idea as to what you think will work, google those keywords and have a look at the types of businesses that come up and whether you think this suits your business. You can also consider the words that your competitors are frequenting as this will give you an idea as to what keywords you should be trying to rank for on Google. 

 

Also, consider Local SEO. If you are a small business then local marketing can be an incredibly effective means for generating sales, even in the face of larger competitors that are known across the world. 

 

You should look to use your keywords on a few different occasions; however, not only does the number of times you use your keyword make a difference, the location of them also has an impact. Realistically, you should try using them at least once within the first few paragraphs. This impacts where Google ranks your website as they assign more weight to terms that appear earlier. 

 

This does not just apply to the body of your text but your titles and description too. If you are creating duplicate content, this could hinder your website's SEO performance as Google have advised businesses to avoid “duplicate or near-duplicate versions of content across your site”.  

 

Google is more likely to bump you up the rankings if you are offering users unique and engaging content. Not to mention, by creating as much, you are ensuring client retention once they have visited your site. 

 

As previously stated, SERPs can be a very effective means of generating traffic to your website. Some of the most useful are as follows: 

 

A featured snippet is where Google will answer a question on their search page. It will create a special kind of result that produces an extract from your site to answer the query, as opposed to simply providing a link to the page that will answer the question. 

 

Featured Snippets can be incredibly effective as they stand out more and show potential customers what going on to your site will entail. It can be a helpful glance into what customers will have access to if they visit your business's website, which therefore will lead to more conversion. 

 

A local pack is a SERP feature that relates specifically to local SEO. Essentially, if someone googles a type of business or query with local intent, the local pack will display a map of the area, along with lists of businesses that can help. The local pack shows the top three results and then users can click an extend button to see more. These listings are created via Google My Business. 

 

The SERP feature of a Carousel is a list-like result which can be used on mobile devices. Essentially, it displays a variety of different cards from your website that users are then able to flick through. Again, this serves as a window into what your site offers users, so they can consider as much before deciding whether or not they want to enter your site. 

 

Regardless of the size of your business, you should ensure that you are using both SEO, Local SEO and SERPs in order to increase the traffic to your website. 

 

When using SEO, it is important to have a clear understanding as to what keywords you should be including in your text and you should be using them frequently throughout your web pages, be they for products, blogs or general information. You should also make sure that the content you are uploading is both unique and engaging as this means that it will rank higher on Google, as opposed to if it was a duplicate of a pre-existing web page. 

 

There are also many SERPs available that will help you rank higher, the one which you use should be beneficial to your business and catered towards the product or service you provide. These can include utilising featured snippets, local packs or a carousel. 

 

Whilst it is important to ensure you are ranking highly on Google, it can be difficult to do this whilst also actually running your business. It’s for these reasons that many are opting for the help of professional web design companies, such as it'seeze Horsham. At it’seeze, we offer affordable web packages for businesses of any size, where we will create SEO friendly websites and provide ongoing expert support to ensure those sites are doing everything possible to rank highly on Google. If you would like more information regarding It’seeze then please do not hesitate to get in touch.