Use Google to increase organic traffic

Most small businesses have a tight budget. After paying for building maintenance, employee wages, supplies, etc. there is not much left over to pay for advertising.

There are countless services out there that offer to advertise your company online, such as Facebook and Google ads, but with a little bit of research you can reach people who are searching for your product or service by using the content on your web site.

Getting people to your web site without paying for advertising is called "organic traffic." It's a lot like word of mouth.

When adding content to your website, keep in mind the keywords that your ideal audience would type into a Google search to find your product. For example, people looking for digital marketing are searching for "digital marketing," "social media," "social media marketing," "online marketing," etc.

Make sure the content on your website is rich with keywords related to your product. Google "bots" routinely crawl the Internet and make a record of wording on websites. that's what fuels the search results.

Not sure what keywords to use? Google AdWords has a keyword tool that gives you a list of the most used keywords that relate to your product or service. Using AdWords is free, you just have to have a Google account. Using the keyword tool is free, you are not required to buy a Google ad.

Click here to learn more about organic traffic and writing quality content.

Going mobile means more now than ever

Chances are you've used your smart phone to search for a local business in the last few months.  Search engines like Google are great for finding the phone number and addresses of local restaurants and stores, but online business listings offer so much more than the ancient phone book. Online business listings can offer reviews, directions, specials, services and more.

With so much information literally at our fingertips we can be much more selective about the information we want to find. And if you are a consumer searching for a specific product or service, such as coffee shops that are open at 6 a.m., if you coffee shop does not have an online presence those searchers might not even know you exist and will take their business to a shop that has hours, prices, specials etc. online.

Think about what you expect when doing an online search. Your keywords bring up a list of web sites, and if your click on the first one does not yield useful information then you're on to the next.

So having an  informative and well-designed website is a great way to get new customers, but in this increasingly mobile era it is not enough.  It is estimated that 60% of searches are done on a mobile device. Is your website mobile friendly? Sure it looks great on your office desktop, but remember that mobile device screens are much smaller and things like videos and large image files can slow down how fast your page loads, especially on a mobile device.

Most people won't sit around and wait for a page to load on their device. If it does not load they'll simply go to a different web site or get frustrated and
 not come back.

Need another reason to make your website mobile friendly? Google searches done on a mobile device will no longer yield results with non mobile-friendly websites.  That's a relief for consumers, but if your business has not hopped on the mobile bandwagon it could be suffering.

So what does having a mobile-friendly website mean?

The design should be responsive. Responsive websites can detect when a user is visiting from a mobile device and automatically fits the content to the correct size.

Read more about how mobile can benefit your business in the article How to Seize Untapped Mobile Opportunity in 2016