Google leaves the clues to visibility in plain sight. Here are 13 opportunities you might have missed, and how to use them to grow visibility.
‘We want to be number 1 in on Google!’ We hear you, but it’s a tough one. You’ve probably got a lot of competition. There are probably much bigger businesses doing what you do too. But you don’t have to get your page on top of Google search. You can take up more real estate instead. If you go about it the right way, you have a chance to make your Google site more visible throughout the search results.
Doing things the ‘right way’ is what’s essential here. Fundamental to SEO practice should be the knowledge that Google prioritises what is right for the user. What is right for the user is high-quality, high-authority content that answers the questions they want to know. Creating compelling and trustworthy content will always provide value, but where should you focus your efforts?
You don’t have to look too hard, Google tells you exactly what it will prioritise right there in its results. But – there’s a good chance you’ve never studied what’s on there (that’s a job for web geeks like me), so I’ll fill you in on the opportunities you might have missed.
I was hungry when I was writing this, so I used the first search that came into my head: ‘Fat duck’. The Foodies out there might know that this is Heston Blumenthal’s famous Michelin-starred restaurant in Bray, Berkshire. Let’s take a look at what delights Google has for us there…
1. Content tags
Right at the top of the search results page (SERP), you’ll see the broad tags covering the types of content that are most relevant for this search. They change based on what you are searching for, but remain largely the same as they are essentially just catch all terms for Google’s content buckets. It’s a great place to start when you’re thinking about content that might appear on Google for that search. In this result, the tags show as ‘Images, Menu, Videos, Locations, Bray, Review, Maps, Price, London’.
These tags essentially tell you what people want to know about the Fat Duck. People want to see what it’s like, to know what food they’ll get, to find out where it is, to read reviews and know how much they’ll have to fork out. This information is as valuable as targeted user research, because it’s based on real searches. So, if you’re not providing the information in the tags, start thinking about ways to do it.
2. Google My Business
Which takes us right on over to the Google My Business listing, which, what do you know – gives us all of the exact information that the tags told us people want to know.
GMB listings get a whole heap of real estate on the results page and so, if you’re not keeping them up-to-date, or if (by chance) you don’t even have one, this is an absolute must. The more information you can provide, the more of this valuable space you’ll get, and the more informed your potential clients will be. It also provides a space for customers to directly ask you questions and for you to answer them back. That section is ‘Questions & answers’, gifting you all of the information that your prospective customers are asking for – that’s free user research!
3. Google Images
Images are often overlooked as a priority when it comes to SEO, but Google gives them a strong presence, right at the top of the Google My Business listing and often right at the top of the SERP. Having high-quality, eye-catching imagery on your website is a great start for improving your visibility on Google, but make sure you fill out the meta data with it, or it won’t appear. Give your images file names that are based on the image, and crawlable alt-text that describes the image and includes relevant keywords where appropriate.
4. Videos
Video content is given high priority, because this is how we as humans now choose to receive our information. According to Google themselves, video consumption is at an ‘all-time high’ and what’s more, their research finds that Creator-driven content is ‘leading the charge’. This, they say is down to relatability:
“In the world of media buying, ‘quality’ content is often associated with sleek production. However, when considering what consumers truly value about video content, the concept of quality is diverging from traditional assumptions. In fact, people find video content most valuable when it’s personal and relevant.”
So don’t let production hold you back, video is an excellent way to dip into your team’s creative side. There’s still a place for slick videos with high production values, but there’s also a place for more relatable, person-centric content – and they both exist on the Google SERP.
5. Review Websites
If you run a product or service-based business, you probably know the power of reviews, but you might not have thought about ensuring that you receive reviews from the top trust-based review sites, such as TrustPilot. These are given a high priority in the SERP as they provide extremely useful information to the consumer, helping them to make informed decisions. To appear on TrustPilot, you can set up your business profile and encourage your existing customers to submit reviews, add a link to the review site within your email marketing, or automate a review email to go out 1-2 weeks after purchase.
6. Social Media Profiles
The same can be said for social media sites. While there is no sense in setting up social media profiles if you don’t have any intention of using them consistently, the fact that they are given weight in the SERP gives another good reason to focus on building a fantastic profile on one or two targeted social media platforms. You gain the visibility on the platform, and on Google. Double whammy.
7. Websites with high authority
It’s also worth looking at what authoritative websites you have connections with and potentially asking them to signpost to you. Not everyone will have a connection with the Michelin Guide, like Our Heston, but there is undoubtedly a connection that can be made with an authority in your field. If you don’t have any yet, it might be worth looking at how you can leverage some content partnerships (learn more about content partnerships in this blog) with related businesses too to keep building the web of visibility.
8. Wikipedia
Anyone can write a Wikipedia entry, though a team of very dedicated volunteers lend their time to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the results. It’s this scrupulous intervention that allows Google to give Wikipedia entries a high status on the SERP, often incorporating them in the top few results as well as the Google My Business listing if you have one. Wikipedia is a good opportunity for you to outline some of your business’s successes and its history. It takes a bit of effort, but if you can create your entry and have it pass the review phased, you’ll gain a good inch of SERP space as your reward. (Heston’s probably not too happy about the ‘norovirus’ tag appearing under his entry though!)
9. ‘People Also Ask’
There are some really fantastic insights Google gives away for free on its search results pages. One of these is the ‘People also ask’ section appearing in the main column of the SERP. This shows you the specific questions that people are searching for in this area, and if you can answer these questions directly with your content, there’s a good chance that you’ll be providing the kind of valuable information that Google will want to rank you for. Especially if you answer a number of these questions with rich, quality multimedia content. More than just your visibility on Google, the ‘People Also Ask’ section gives you great user research to inform your customers better in FAQs or blog content that will help to secure trust and authority overall.
10. ‘People Also Search For’
Similar to ‘People Also Ask’ is ‘People Also Search For’. Instead of the questions that people want to know, this gives you insight into who else within your location or area of business people are researching. This lets you know who you’re actually competing with. This is a really helpful insight that can help you to compete with more relevant, useful or higher quality information than your competitors. It might surprise you who you’re actually competing with and give you new ideas for content.
11. Related Searches
By now you can see that there are lots of different ways that Google will package up information to help the user find what they want to find and many of these seem very similar, but ‘Related Searches’ presents an opportunity for you to learn about more specific and relevant searches that people are making. As you can see in the results below, all of the related searches provided have the words ‘fat duck’ in them. They’re all related to the key words that I searched for. This provides more insights that can help you to create relevant content that answers the questions your already-invested audience want to know. They’re asking specifically about these things in relation to your business or business area, give them the answers.
12. Autocomplete Searches
The autocomplete function in Google is awesome, because it is like a looking glass into user behaviour. Try it yourself – type in any word or series of words and see the options that Google presents (hours of fun!). These options are the most popular searches that include those keywords. I repeat…this is free user research and it’s invaluable if you’re looking to both get more visibility on Google and service your customers and prospects better.
13. Your Own Website
Last, but definitely not least, you own website might not be showing up as best it can. You’ll see that the listing for the Fat Duck sits on several lines, and provides 5 sections of information that cover the most common actions or questions patrons have about the restaurant. This is because it has multiple pages that answer those questions or allow patrons to take those actions. If you have a single-page website, this will not happen for you. You’ll only be able to have a single line entry on the SERP. If SEO is important to you, this is one of the reasons we would advise against single page websites. It’s also important on all websites that you complete all of the metadata that you can in order to allow Google bots to understand what each page is about. This is where the basics of SEO come into play, and all of the insights you can gain from Google itself will help to inform this process.
A Final Checklist
It can seem impossible to gain visibility on such a huge search engine, but you don’t have to pay Google to rank higher. You might be asking, ‘But why don’t I appear on Google?’ It’s probable that the groundwork hasn’t been done. SEO is a complex game with many factors, but content plays a huge part of the equation. Fortunately, as I’ve shown, there is a whole lot of information available to help you, for free, right there on Google. You just have to look and act on it. If you want your website to take its rightful space on the Google SERP here are a few actions, in summary:
- Use the search results insights to create content that answers the most common questions
- Consider the formats of content that you are not yet showing up for and create that content.
- Give your social media profiles consistent attention
- Add meta data to each page, image and video
- Utilise partnerships to increase your authority
- Migrate from a single to a multi-page website
Big Bee Content is here to help deliver impactful content that allows you to serve your audience better. If you want to see better results from your content, get in touch.
About the Author
Niki May Blane is founder of Big Bee Content – our ‘Queen Bee’.
A former journalist and content production manager, she is a passionate storyteller and maintains order in the Hive by carefully aligning disciplines to deliver projects. Niki can most commonly be found buzzing around delivering virtual workshops and creating copious amounts of copy.