Triple Your Search Results – 3 Ways to Drive Online traffic

 

When you are craving for the perfect shrimp dish for lunch, where’s the first place you go to find what you are looking for? There’s a high possibility you may be one of the 4.1 billion users to turn to the internet or you might feel to get a little bit more targeted and turn to your leading local search option – Yello!

As the Caribbean’s highest-visited search option, Yello connects consumers to the products and services they need at the moment. So as a business owner or marketer, put yourself in the shoe of your very own potential client and try to see how best to match up. If you are the person searching for the shrimp dish or the best dry cleaner close by, chances are you won’t go beyond the first page that pops up. What does this mean? You’ll need to get your business to page one – and it’s not by luck or chance, it’s through search engine marketing (SEM)! On average for search queries across the Caribbean, Yello always ranks on page 1 of Google. This way you can also get more search results.

Whether you’re running a local restaurant or a hardware store, having a well-thought-out SEM strategy can increase your online presence (ultimately helps to increase foot traffic into your stores too) by placing you at the top of search engine results pages.

A successful SEM campaign is a crucial piece of the digital marketing puzzle when a business is hiking up ways to drive more traffic to their online platforms and there are three potent ways to be good at this. With a little patience, a competent team and a few expert tips, you too can implement an effective SEM campaign. Use these tips to see what you can do to increase your traffic online.

 

Make local presence priority

Similar to how you generate in-store activities for your business by engaging with customers and developing promotions, creating a strong online presence should have the same approach, but it will require more tactical work. The first thing that’s needed is for your business to effectively target the right audience for your product or service. There are several personas – which are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers – and these are floating around the internet and you want to ensure your search results are pulling the right ones. This targeting must take a comprehensive look at tenets such as demographic, geo-targeting (targeting based on location) and aspects of psychographics (what these personas really like) to bring your products to the right customers.

Once you have the zeal to take your business into the digital arena, Yello has a host of digital solutions to help your business succeed. Yes, we provide the very same social media marketing assistance through display and search and you can get a free consultation to kick off your digital footprints!

In ensuring that your website is up-to-speed and attractive, you’ll also need it to be compatible with mobile phones. According to Google, more searches are happening on smartphones than computers. And to add to that, there is the continued growth of “near me” search terms (i.e., “hair salon near me”) and your website has to be positioned to outdo surrounding competitors. Again, Yello not only creates websites for clients but getting listed on the Mobile Yello Directory (mobile directory platform) gives your business the ability to be discovered through the similar “around me” feature.

After all, it’s 2018 and if your website isn’t mobile responsive, you’re failing to capitalize on a huge demographic of the population. It’s also very critical to ensure that all of your business information (address, phone number, and website) links are consistent across all of your online profiles. Once elements of SEM are added to these listings, it helps to organically carry over searches and link them to your social media handles and review sites. But it’s key to have your information up-to-date and here’s why.

 

Constantly update and optimize content.

A high-quality SEM campaign must include constant content creation that is properly optimized and responsive across various platforms (PC, tablet, mobile phone, etc). Your search rankings can only improve with the right digital spend behind it and a cohesive co-existence of your online assets. It’s imperative that whenever your business is creating content – the customer must always be in mind, as they are the ones who it’s being packaged for.

If you’re still figuring out the best ways to host your content besides your website, one of our recommendation is to have a blog. Once that blog is maintained and updated religiously with fresh content, which increases the chance of your business being discovered. Of course, it won’t be that easy, as keywords use will play a significant role in trapping the eyes to your business.

Whether you are utilizing an in-house talent or an agency to handle your online assets, they should have the expertise and knowledge on how to optimize your blog and website for keyword search rankings.

 

Consider backlinks and increase online authority.

Another way for your business to develop online authority and increase traffic is through mentions and having a backlink to third-party websites (websites besides yours). One effective tactic is to achieve this through constant Public Relations. If you are a business and you have just created a new website, chances are your business name will be nonexistent across search engines. But if you are present on platforms such as Yello that receives over one million visitors per year, you’re talking about possibly doubling the number of visitors you’ll get on your site. Yello also has a special features section that can give you an additional push via written articles about a special offer you might have – which helps to secure more eyes to your business.

As the attention surrounding your business grows, so will your traffic. Remember, it may take years to effectively develop a reputation in your local markets, just as it takes years to develop your authority on the World Wide Web.