If I had a dollar every time I was asked this from a client, “How do I rank higher on Google?” – well, let’s just say I might be able to take some tropical vacations in my spare time – ha!

Although this is a highly complex question, I am breaking down SEO (a fancy acronym for search-engine optimization – or higher Google ranking) into 3 easy steps to help your business website rank higher.

1. Update your website frequently Google will rank sites higher that have had content recently added.

The easiest way to do this is blogging, but this can also be done by just changing a headline or your business description, adding new staff biographies, talking about an upcoming event, etc. Google will know when a website is never touched, will assume it’s out of date, and will not show it in a search, or least not show it as high in the ranking list. Schedule a time every week or every month to put something new on your site.  If you don’t have a website that you can update easily on your own, I would highly encourage you to seek out a new website that allows you to make these changes as it is critical in getting people to your site.

2. Find friends and other businesses to link to you Google loves websites that are being mentioned in other places.

Creating links back to your website is a good way to tell if a website is credible is if other people are mentioning it. The best way to accomplish this is to ask people you know who do have a blog if you can write a guest post. Or, ask them if they would review your product or write a testimonial and then link to your site. The technical term for this is “backlinks,” and there are lots of ways to do it. Starting by asking your network to mention your website is the best place to start.

3. Make sure your website is mobile-user friendly

Now Google gives priority to websites that are viewed easily on a smart-phone. Since so many web searches happen now on a mobile phone, Google gives priority in their results to websites that are formatted that way. To check if your website is mobile-friendly, pull it up on your phone and take note if you can see all the information without having to pinch or pan left or right. If you do not have a mobile-friendly website, you might not need a complete re-design to get it to be. Check with me and I can do a no-cost website audit to see how you’re performing.

Implementing these three steps into your business will pay off big time in how you rank, which will get people to your site, which will help grow your business or organization. Let me know if you have any questions!