Most of us are at an age where we can appreciate advances in technology, but still remember simpler times.
What if phonebooks were still the lifeblood of your customers’ business searches? Where would you want your business to be listed? Buried under a misspelling in the white pages? Among a list of hundreds of similar businesses in the yellow pages? Prominently featured on the cover? If you were in business 20 years ago, you may even remember some competitors intentionally starting their business’ name with an “A” or “B” because they wanted to rise to the top of searches by the way people were looking for them—alphabetically. A business could be lost in a sea of names if it wasn’t positioned to be found.
Fast-forward to the digital age and online rankings are much like the phone book. If people know the exact title of your business, they can track you down fairly quickly. However, if people are searching for someone in your business category on the web (as is the number one search method), there may be hundreds, thousands, and yes, sometimes millions of businesses that trump yours in the search results. Is it your habit to click through multiple pages when you do a search? If people cannot find what they are looking for on the first or second page, they generally don’t keep scrolling through other listings, they re-phrase their search words. Roughly translated, this means if you ain’t first, you might as well be last.
Did you know:
– 8 out of 10 people search online when looking for product information
– 85% of people ignore paid links
– 63% of the links naturally listed at the top of Search results are opened
*source: Search Engine News
Your Design Online partners with you and takes a personal interest in making sure your business shows up correctly in the “white pages,” outranks your competition in the “yellow pages,” and is placed in front of other businesses through a prominent feature on “the cover.”
