Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) For Hamilton Businesses
Is your business showing up on the front page of Google for Hamilton search results? If not, you’re missing out on clients, and income. It is time to hire a local SEO company in Hamilton.
When customers are searching for your product and services, showing up on the front page of Google can be the deciding factor between a business that’s thriving and one that’s not.
Did you know?
There are on average 3.5 billion searches on Google every day
97% of consumers have used the internet to research products and services in their local area
92% of searches only look at the first page of results
More than 50% of searches on Google are on mobile devices.
The website at position #1 in the search results gets 300% more clicks than the website in the #3 position!
So, what are the benefits of getting ranked higher in Google Organic Search?
If you get your business to rank higher in Google, then it’s obvious that you’ll get more traffic to your website and more enquiry and more traffic means more business.
Research shows that on an average, the #1 ranked site in search results gets 32.5% of clicks. The #3 site gets 11.4%. Whereas the #10 site (the last place on the first page) gets only 2.4% of clicks. The full results are shown in the table below.
Statistics from Chitika’s International report, the value of Google result positioning
92% of people only look at the first page of search results. So it’s important for your site to be on the first page. But that’s not the final aim. Getting higher up the first page will significantly increase the amount of search engine traffic you receive.
Research has shown that 50% of users who search for a local business on a mobile device visit or call that business within a day4.
Infrographic Credit: www.searchenginewatch.com
If you’re a local Hamilton business, this means it’s essential that your business ranks in the Local Google Organic Search and Google’s Snack Pack (the Google Map Listings). SEO in Hamilton is essential for the success of any local Hamilton business.
Here is a screenshot of how a Google Snack Pack (Google Search Map Listing) looks when searching in Hamilton.
As you can see from the above screenshot that one of our Hamilton SEO clients, Goldstar Heat Pumps, is getting ranked in Google Snack Pack as well as well as ranked #1 in Google Organic Search Listing when someone searches for “heat pumps Hamilton”. This has helped them generate more sales and significantly grow their business in Hamilton.
So, if you want to get your website ranked in Google Snack Pack and in Google’s Organic Search Listing, contact Duoplus – Hamilton’s SEO specialist. At Duoplus, we help businesses in Hamilton grow their traffic and leads with Search Engine Optimisation, or “SEO” for short. We can help your website rank higher in Google and help grow your business too.
Through Duoplus we managed to increase our sales by 100% in 12 months.
“We have been using Duoplus to do our online marketing and we have found it to be a huge success. Previously we used newspaper, radio, pamphlet drops and telephone marketing, and we found that we got little results from these forms of marketing. Through Duoplus we managed to increase our sales in the first 12 months by 100%. And then by another 30% again the following year. We’ve gone from being a small company in Hamilton, to being the number one independent Fujitsu dealer in New Zealand, just within 18 months. My recommendation is, if you want to grow your company, then talk to Duoplus.”
So, what do you need to do to make your business rank higher in Google?
There are a number of things that need to work together to get your website ranking higher.
To improve your Hamilton SEO results there are two main areas that affect your ranking overall: • 30-40% of search engine ranking is based on the content and code on your website. This is called On-Page Optimisation. • 60-70% of ranking is based on factors on other websites, mainly links that point to your site. This is called Off-Page Optimisation and is a long process of building up your site’s authority in the eyes of search engines.
Duoplus specialises in result driven SEO in Hamilton, the greater Waikato and across New Zealand. We can help you grow your ranking in search engines, so your existing and potential customers can find you with ease.
On-Page SEO Optimisation
Website Loading Speed
Site loading speed matters when it comes to SEO. Nobody likes a website that loads slow, not even Google, so make sure you optimise your website’s loading speed.
Try to make your website load in under 3 seconds.
There’s some free tools which can help you test your page speed.
On-Page SEO Optimisation plays an important part when you want to rank higher in local search results.
Here’s an short list of On-Page SEO factors you should consider if you want to rank higher in Hamilton search results:
Have your targeted keyword included in Page Titles and Meta Descriptions.
Have your targeted keyword included in H1 Tags of your site.
Make sure that the Page Title length is not more than 60 characters and Meta Description within 300-320 characters.
Have the targeted keywords included in page URLs.
Make sure the location that you’re trying to rank for is included in your Page Titles, Page URLs and H1 tags.
Make sure you add ALT text on images – Alt text should contain targeted keywords- make it look natural – like describing an image
“Our website traffic has increased hugely”
“Duoplus have been great for our company. Our website traffic has increased hugely through their hard work. Josh initially sat down with us to determine the exact type of lead we wanted to generate and then tailored a plan that has helped maximise the number of quality leads directed to our website. It is one thing to have a great website but then getting people to it is the most important thing. Duoplus are a great company that have helped us to do this. I would highly recommend Josh and the team.”
Schema markup is microdata that you can use to help search engines parse and understand your website’s information more effectively. There are many categories of businesses that are defined in the Local Business Schema markup.
Local business Schema markup gives another signal to search engines about the geography you serve, which helps with local SEO rankings. Other Schema markup helps search engines show your review ratings.
Review ratings Schema markup does not directly affect your organic search rankings, but it can make your webpages appear more prominently in Google Search results and can help you improve click-through rates. If your click-through-rate increases, eventually your organic rank will increase too, as Google will notice that more people are clicking on your website and will move your website higher up the page on search engine results.
Schema is an important part of strategy for ranking well in local SEO in Hamilton or anywhere else. If you want to test and validate whether Schema markup is implemented in your website and whether it’s valid or not, click here.
This tool is developed by Google and checks and validates the Schema markup on your website. If it’s not implemented correctly, it’ll show you an error.
Here’s an example of how a Schema markup looks, in Hamilton organic search results. As you can see the Jenco Electrical website stands out because of the 5-star rating icon that is showing.
Off-Page SEO Optimisation
Google My Business Listing:
Google My Business listing is the most important listing that you need to have, to get your business ranked in Google for Hamilton. It’s a free listing service provided by Google to help businesses get found on Google search results. It provides complete information about a business like the business’s name, address, phone, hours of operation, reviews, links to website, directions to the business, photos.
Google My Business helps your business appear right when people are searching for your business on Google Search and Google maps. It is a vital step to take in your SEO efforts, be it in Hamilton or across New Zealand.
Here’s an example of a Google My Business Listing for one of our Hamilton SEO clients, Alba Plumbing.
If you have listed your business on Google My Business already, that’s awesome 😊 but if you haven’t listed your business on Google My Business, you can get your listing for free right now. Click here to list your business on Google.
"From page 3 to first page in Google".
These guys sure know their stuff - from buried deep on about page 3 to first page in a year - awesome work! Thanks, Duoplus!
Reviews are also important and help your business rank higher in Google for Hamilton. Building up your number of reviews should be part of your SEO strategy for getting ranked in Hamilton. Having positive reviews on core review sites sends a strong signal to Google that your business is credible. If you have a Google My Business Listing, you should encourage your customers to write reviews about your business and try to get as many 5 star reviews as you can.
If you get a negative review from a grumpy customer, reply to that customer as soon as possible via Google My Business and try to resolve the issue. The more number of 5 Star reviews you get from your customers, the better it is for your business. This tells Google that customers are happy with your business and will rank you higher than other businesses.
Also try to get your customers to write reviews about your business on Facebook, Yelp, FourSquare, TripAdvisor and other review sites.
Local Links
Getting a link back from other local Hamilton websites, blogs or directories can help you rank better in Google.
But it’s not about getting links from just any website. Google has cracked down on spammy link building activities that many companies were using to increase their ranking. Google wants to see:• Links from a variety of relevant sites • Links with a variety of relevant words in the link. • Links from a variety of types of sites (websites, social media, directories, blogs, etc). • Links built up over time. (If a whole lot of links appear all at once, Google can be suspicious that you’re gaming the system and can penalise your site.) • Links from pages that are important – a link from a powerful site in your niche is a lot more valuable than links from unknown sites.
For example, if you are a Hamilton plumbing company, try to get links from other Hamilton tradies, Hamilton business directories, general directories with “Plumber” as a category, or any plumbing related blog. If you can get a link from a website that has high domain authority that’s even better because higher the domain authority, the more power the link has and the more this helps with getting ranked higher in Google.
Building a large enough number of links from a wide variety of sites is next to impossible to do on your own. And it would certainly take away from your ability to focus your attention on your customers and building your business. That’s why we take care of it for you.
Once we have made the initial On-Page Optimisation changes to your site, we then start to build links to your site each week, and over time this tells Google and other search engines that you site is important. We have a wide variety of quality sites that we use to build content and links that point to your site. We focus on creating real, genuine links. (It is very important to stay well away from anything spammy or automated.) And our results speak for themselves.
Search engine results take months to build up, but are enormously beneficial for getting your perfect target market to your website.
Invest in local SEO in Hamilton, or wherever else your business is based, and reap the benefits of your strong rankings, leads and sales.
Citations
A citation is any mention of your business on the web that has a combination of your company’s name, phone number, address, postcode, and website address. Citations in SEO are a key factor in improving your local search results.
One of the keys to succeed in local SEO to get ranked well in Hamilton, is having your citations NAP (Name, Address and Phone number) consistent across all citations.
Your business name, address and phone number should match exactly with how it is mentioned in Google My Business.
Having a consistent NAP sends a strong point to Google that your business is legitimate and helps you get ranked higher in Google local search results.
Here’s an example of a correct citation for one of our clients – Jenco Electrical. The screenshot shows their Yelp listing. The business name, address and phone number matches exactly how it is in Google My Business Listing.
These are some of the important factors to consider if you want to rank your business higher in Google Local Organic Search.
If you need help with SEO in Hamilton, the greater Waikato or across New Zealand, for your local business, contact us today. We love helping businesses grow. We specialise in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and AdWords campaigns from our office based in Hamilton. If you want to grow your business, contact us today or book a free strategy session.
1 Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search – Quoted by Mashable 2 BIA/Kelsey User View Wave VII study – www.biakelsey.com 3 Chitika’s report The Value of Google Result Positioning. June 2013. 4 Google: Local Searches Lead 50% of Mobile Users to Visit Stores [Study] – www.searchenginewatch.com
