As an entrepreneur, you are of course mainly concerned with your core business. But of course, you have to have enough customers to be able to carry this out. Nowadays, every potential customer searches for products or services on the Internet. When your service or product is typed in, you naturally want your company to be at the top. Is that already the case?
NO, I’M NOT FOUND WELL YET
It is of great importance for every entrepreneur to be found well. This way you are visible to the customer at the most important moment, namely the moment when the customer is looking for your product or service. While potential customers might find you using a free name phone number search, being found in Google increases your chances of exposure.
YES, I’M ALREADY WELL FOUND!
Do you ever keep an eye on it and do you have the idea that you are already well found online? Then follow the next steps and check if that is really the case!
1. SEARCH FOR THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
Do you ever search for your company name in Google, and are you at the top? Super! That just doesn’t mean that your online visibility is good. Of course, you don’t just want to be findable for the customers where your company is already in their top-of-mind awareness.
KEYWORDS THAT DESCRIBE YOUR SERVICE OR PRODUCT
You also want to reach the customers who want to purchase your service or product, but are still looking for the right company. That is why you want to be findable on the keywords that describe your product or service.
An example:
Suppose your name is Jan Janssen and you started an accounting firm together with your brother Piet Janssen. The company is therefore called Janssen & Janssen Accountants. You mainly do accounting for companies and give financial and tax advice. When you google “Janssen & Janssen” or “Janssen & Janssen Accountants”, you will probably be found well, after all, that is the company name.
But someone who, for example, needs financial advice or wants to outsource his administration and is therefore still looking for a good accounting firm, will not use your company name as a search term. It will then be more likely to search for “outsource administration” or “financial advice SME”. So if you want to check whether you are found well, you can search for these types of terms.
LOCAL KEYWORDS
You can specify these search terms even further. Suppose your accounting firm is located in Etten-Leur. Then you can choose to search for example on “accounting firm Etten-Leur” or on “outsource administration Etten-Leur”. There is a chance that you will already be found because you are located here.
But entrepreneurs from surrounding towns and cities are also interesting, right? So also check whether you are found at “accounting firm Breda” or “outsource administration Roosendaal”. Local findability is very important and if you want to know if you are found well, it is important to check this as well.
REASONS WHY YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS SHOULD USE YOUR SERVICE
Why would anyone need a tax advisor? Perhaps because they have a conflict with the tax authorities, or because their administration is a mess. There are plenty of people who see Google as a problem solver and type in their problems. So you also want to be found on “resolving conflict with tax authorities” or on “how do you file a tax return”. Search for these types of terms; are you already found on those terms?
2. SEARCH INCOGNITO
When you start performing these searches, it is important that you do not do this in your default browser. Of course, you yourself have often been on your company’s website and Google remembers that. Google also sees that you are logged in to your Gmail account, for example, and Google probably sees your location, so the order of the search results will also have changed.
In order not to get a distorted picture of your findability when you start searching for different terms, you can search in incognito. Go to your browser and click on the three dots or dashes in the top right. Then you can automatically choose an incognito option. Please note, this term may vary per browser. When you search in incognito, Google no longer takes into account which sites you have visited before, but still takes your location into account. You can also turn this off in the settings. After this, you can search extensively and see how the findability of your website is doing!
ARE YOU NOT BEING FOUND AS GOOD AS YOU THOUGHT?
Have you searched for your business on different types of terms, in incognito? Did you come to the conclusion that your findability is not as good as you thought? Then it is important to do something about it so that you no longer miss out on customers.