Being accurate and consistent
Create a document with the following business information:
- Name of business
- Address
- Phone number
- Date founded
- Website
- Social media links
- About paragraph
When filling out information about your business online (mainly on business listings and other web-based profiles), you can copy and paste from the document and it’ll be the same each time. Having the same contact information will make your business seem more reputable to consumers and the search engines.
Claiming your business listings
Business listings are the results that show up when someone searches for your company online. For Google™, it appears on the right side of the search site. Claiming your listings on search engines like Google, Yelp®, Bing, Yahoo!® and other popular sites will allow you to manage the listings and keep them up-to-date.
Improving and updating your website
It’s important to have a website, as it acts as your online office for customers to learn about your business and take important actions, like requesting a quote or purchasing a product. If you don’t have a website, you can either hire someone to create one or create one for free using Google My Business.
Once you have a website, be sure to keep it updated and free of errors. This could be as simple as improving the loading speed on your website, providing correct information and making sure all links within the site are working correctly.
Analyze how your website is doing
If you have a Google account, you can register with Google Search Console. It’s free and you can view your website’s performance, page errors, queries and more. You will also get alerted if Google identifies any issues with your website.
Staying active on social media
At Foremost® we recommend posting on your social media pages three to five times a week. Linking to your website in some of those posts will help drive people to your website and improve your SEO. The more authoritative, real and reliable links you have coming to and from your website, the more this will increase your SEO.
Provide quality content
Whether you’re creating content for your business’ social media pages, your blog or your website, it should all be high quality and valuable content. For example, having links that are more descriptive than “click here” will also help people navigate your website easier. Potential customers will find interest, more use and learn more about your company.