Competing for More Visibility

As more and more websites pop up and fight for positioning, competition for top rankings has become fierce. It’s becoming harder and harder to achieve desired rankings nowadays without professional help. So the question you should ask yourself is how do I compete? Below I’m going to show you a few ways to try and increase your online visibility yourself:

• Test Different Meta descriptions. This is one of the easiest ways to increase traffic even without increasing rankings. Obtaining a first page ranking for a given keyword is just one step to getting more traffic because there are still nine other organic competitors on that page. So take the time to test different marketing messages within the Meta description to improve your organic click through rate.  For starters, make sure descriptions are relevant to page content and ensure competitive differentiators such as price and quality is included. So start testing those Meta descriptions because you better believe your competitors are doing it.
• Run PPC on branded keywords. Coupling organic visibility with paid search visibility has been proven to improve click through rates within both spaces. Consistent messaging and prominent display improves trust among searchers – especially for those that might not yet be familiar with your brand – thus increasing their likelihood to click.
• Manage site links. Check to make sure these are displayed in an ideal manner. If non-relevant site links are being displayed over more useful ones (About Us vs. Make an Appointment, for example) then log into your Google Webmaster Tools account and block the site links that are not adding any value.
• Utilize new content. Google loves new, freshly updated content. Try to write an article or blog post as often as you can so that Google sees your website is updating often. This will cause Google to visit your site more often and possibly help you gain more trust.
• Take advantage of real time search. Now that Google is integrating dynamic streams of real time content into their search results, much of which comes from Twitter, this represents a huge opportunity for additional traffic.  Use relevant keywords in your tweets so that these will rank in real time search results and you can gain additional (albeit short lived) search engine visibility.

These tips should be in addition to your normal optimization techniques. Just remember that there are quite a few tactics that can be used in conjunction to SEO that will help to gain additional traffic. If you take advantage of all opportunities, large and small, you should see a lift in new visitors.