You can have the greatest equipment, the speediest turnaround times and a dozen pickup locations, but if no one can find your web site, you will be missing out on thousands of potential customers every day.
The best way to get these customers is to ensure that when a visitor types “Printers in [your region]” you are the first result they see.
Called “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO”, this practice is a way of streamlining the structure and content of your website to make it “Google friendly” for the specific keywords you want to rank for.
SEO issues are constantly in the minds of printers who rank well. How do I get higher rankings on search engines? Why is my printer website not showing up on the top pages of search engines? Why are my online printing products not selling?
There are a handful of printers who have it right, and are making a lot of money on the internet (especially if they have Web to Print capabilities). But 80% of printers ignore SEO, reasoning that search engines are an impenetrable mystery, that can only be used effectively by basement-dwelling geniuses who casually set-up online empires between rounds of World of Warcraft.
The good news for you is that you don’t have to be a genius to improve your rankings significantly, and 80% of your competition won’t even try so even basic techniques can yield impressive results.
Let’s start with what a search engine looks for to determine which online printing company gets the coveted page one ranking.
Print Links
Links are of vital importance, as when search engines index a site, they simply follow the linking structure from the homepage. If you have pages that are not cross-linked or are hidden, the search engine hits a “dead end” and you miss out on having as many entry points as possible to your online printer’s presence. Ideally, all pages in a website should link to each other and should be no more than 4 clicks away from the homepage. Submitting site maps is a fast and easy way to show the full structure of your website. Google Sitemaps provides an excellent free service to create and administer site maps.
Print News – Unique and Fresh Content
Google is not a business directory, it is an information source. If your website is just a few static pages selling print online (a “brochure site”), it is unlikely that search engines will regularly check your site for updates. You need to appear to be an “authority site” and provide regular updates and information. Adding a print template design gallery, news releases, articles and regular content updates will make Google visit your site more and more to see what new content you have to display to searchers. Just be sure that you don’t cheat by copying other people’s work – as being flagged as a duplicate content poster will hurt you.
Domain Importance
This is one of the most important aspects of how a search engine will look at your site. Many people have heard that more links = higher rankings. This is true, but before you go spamming forums and guest books with your site address (which doesn’t work), focus instead on the quality of the site linking to you. One link from “WhatTheyThink” or “American Printer“ is more valuable than a thousand links from an unknown site – as Google already judges sites like these as authority sites on print. If they are linking to you, why then you must be important too! Fortunately, printing trade sites are always looking for fresh content, which you can submit for free.
Relevant Linking
Try to get relevant links back to you that apply to your niche. If your site is about business cards printing then try to get back links from sites that have business cards as a focus.
Become a Print Search Engine
Add a search box to your website. If Google sees that there is a lot of searches for a keyword on your site and it is getting a lot of traffic, this will help your site stay in the index. Again, this can be done for free using Google Search.
Know the Mind of Print Buyers
Instead of guessing at which keywords will perform well, find out how searchers are finding you now! By adding Google Analytics to your website, you’ll be able to see exactly what search terms are bringing users to your website. Design your content updates around these terms, and you’ll be setting up high ranking entry points for the keywords that already work, and you’ll attract more of these visitors.
There are many other variables to consider when optimizing a print website for search, but you will see results if you use these basic techniques.
What Can I Do Today?
Book in your calendar 30 minutes per day to perform search engine optimization for print. Getting a top-ranking site can’t be done in a day, but by being persistent and consistent, you’ll see spectacular results over time. Keep your mind on the thousands of customers who need you but can’t find you, and this task will become a joy, not a burden.
Write a press release about a new (or previously unknown) service you offer. Make it newsworthy, and submit it to WhatTheyThink with a cheery introduction to your print shop. You can submit content for free to WhatTheyThink here: http://members.whattheythink.com/home/news.cfm
Make a list of 20 relevant websites you can use to link to you. Do a Google search for [Your Printing Term] AND [submit URL] to bring up a list of open directories who want to link to you.
Add Google’s search box to your website.
Create and submit a Site Map for your print website.
Put Google Analytics on your website.
