You’re running a business, optimising your operations, managing your finances and building meaningful relationships with your customers. All well and good.

But do you have a website?

If you don’t, consider these 5 reasons why you need one:

• To showcase your products or services and increase your market visibility
• To generate new leads and drive more sales
• To provide a valuable resource to your potential audience
• To build your brand’s equity and value
• To influence conversations and build a community around your brand

Besides, some 2 billion people use Google search on their Android Smartphones. The total number of Google users is even higher.

For all these reasons, if you don’t yet have a website for your business, you are missing out on some great opportunities!

So now you have a website that is well-designed, includes great content and is aligned with your overall brand strategy. Great!

But is it VISIBLE?

Most people who do a Google search don’t go past the first couple of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Why would they, when there over 1.7 billion websites currently occupying some real estate on the WWW?! This is why the first organic result in Google has a click-through rate of about 30%. This gets lower as you go down the SERP.

Therefore it’s not enough to simply have a website and appear somewhere in a Google SERP. Your goal should be to have your website appearing on the first page.

To do this, you need to do Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). SEO is the process of getting traffic to a website from the ‘organic’ (i.e. free) results on search engines like Google. It involves adding relevant keywords to the website’s code and content to make it more search engine-friendly and promoting the site in ways that increase its relevance, ranking and appearance on SERPs.

So how do YOU ensure that your website shows up on the first page of SERPs?

Here are 5 time-tested SEO tips that work!

1: Do keyword research

It is often easier and less expensive to rank for less competitive (aka long-tail keywords) than for top search phrases. Do your research and create content for people who are searching for solutions, ideas or answers related to your type of business. If your firm does business locally, focus your research on local search terms. Use tools like Google Search Console to identify key metrics that can help you with your optimisation goals. Remember that keyword research and optimisation cannot be a one-time activity. You have to continue the process and keep updating your website with content that incorporates these keywords (see below).

2: Produce relevant, useful content regularly

Content should be a crucial element of your SEO strategy!

Produce relevant content that your users can engage with. Make your site unique and valuable, and update it regularly. Avoid auto-generated content and don’t plagiarise from other sources. Incorporate important keywords in a way that doesn’t look forced or ‘stuffed’. A blog is a great way to add content to your website regularly and keep it on the 1^st page of SERPs. Optimise your headlines with keywords (numbers work too – just like this in this article!) and try to keep the language conversational.

Also important – write for real people. Don’t make the mistake of writing for search engines (also see #5 below). If you do, your website might be blackballed by Google!

3: Create Google snippets

Google snippets can give you an edge over your competitors in the SERP game. Research the most common questions from people searching for answers in your niche. Create content answering those questions. This information will appear in the snippets box at the top of a SERP and increase the chances of users interacting with your site. A proven way to harness the potential of the Google snippet box is to include a title containing a common question and then place a bulleted list below the question.

4: Learn from the competition

Review the websites that outrank you on SERPs. What are they doing right to rank higher? Better content? More links? Better engagement elements (e.g. live chat)? Richer social media linkages?

The goal is not to plagiarise from your competition or play the ‘me-too’ game. Rather, such an analysis will give you a starting point for creating the best content (quality and relevance) for a particular search query in a way that appeals to real people and convinces Google that your site is the ‘best’ and deserving on ranking on the first page.

5: Users first, search engine later!

This tip applies to both your site and its content. Does your site have errors? Incorrect content? Broken links? People will leave! Disappointed users will also talk about your below-par website on social media and prevent others from viewing your site (which means lower visibility and low traffic).

It’s important to ensure that your site does not have any critical errors. Maintain good on-page site structure. Enhance your site with images and videos to keep visitors from ‘bouncing’ (i.e. leaving). Also keep an eye on user-engagement signals. Are people talking about your brand on social media? Great! Don’t ignore them – even if the conversations are negative or critical.

Try all these 5 strategies to keep your site to the first page of Google’s SERPs. SEO is free. If you have the budget, you can also try Search Engine Marketing (SEM).