What is a Search Engine?
At the most basic level, a search engine is a software designed to perform searches for specific information, usually on the world wide web. To answer your question, yes there are search engines designed to query local or private networked databases. However, our focus for this conversation would be the commonly used web-based tools. Examples include Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, among others.
With the advancement in internet technology (data mining, users and businesses becoming increasingly generous with information sharing), the quality of information that a search engine can provide has become remarkable. Today, search engines are measured based on their ability to provide you with relevant information in the shortest possible time (usually microseconds).
The Value of Search Engines for Marketing and Sales.
For most of us, the first place we go to look for an answer to any question is a search engine. This is particularly true when we are searching for a product or service to meet a need. This means that businesses that optimize to appear top of the page or at the very least on the first page of our search results are bound to convert more clients from search engines.
There are more than a billion product searches carried out on Google alone every day. Every serious business should be concerned about putting their business front and centre for consumers.
It may seem a bit daunting to try to appear on the first page of any search but remember, search engines are designed to give users the most useful result regardless of brand names. This means you (Roli’s cakes and confectionaries) are bound to rank higher than a bigger international brand (let’s say Cake Boss) on a search by a user looking for bakers who deliver to Surulere. Even without the user explicitly putting in their location, you are bound to rank higher if the user has localization settings (GPS) activated.
Just for fun – Google your full name and find out what position you find information about yourself. This is bound to be more interesting if you do it on an incognito browser or a computer you have not used before.
How to get started?
For larger and more established businesses, you may want to get a professional to get the job done for you. Digital Marketers who offer this service would probably indicate that they can provide search engine marketing (SEM) or search engine optimization (SEO) for your business.
The difference between SEO and SEM is usually slimmer in practice. However, I would briefly differentiate to facilitate the conversation with vendors and help you know what to expect.
Search Engine Optimization focuses on improving the quality and quantity of visitors to a website or webpage and targets unpaid traffic using technical means. Search Engine Marketing tries to increase the visitors to a website primarily through paid means (advertising) AND technical means. (Wikipedia paraphrased)
So, while SEO focuses on letting search engines know that you are the most relevant piece of information on a topic, SEM lets search engines know that: yes there is information about this topic on my page; I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is that my visitors will derive utility from the visit – get me on the first page.
When you run a search, any business that you see advertised in your search – SEM. The organic results are often a result of good SEO.
It may not be so practical for smaller businesses to begin their Search Engine Marketing experience by paying a professional. There are still some things you can do to level the playing field while you grow. The conversation around the tools will be focused on smaller businesses for this reason.
Search Engine tools every business needs to know about…
Website: While you can use a few tricks to make your social media content or handle rank higher, the most efficient and sustainable means for maintaining a position on a search engine result page is by owning a website. Depending on your level of comfort with internet technology and your resources, this could range from a hosted blog service (such as an account on Blogspot, wordpress.com) up to a full-service web app. Each option along that spectrum has its advantages and disadvantages for your marketing needs.
The most relevant constraint is that the web app will probably give you more flexibility, but it would require more technical knowledge or resources to maintain than a hosted blog. For an entry-level beginner, I would recommend going with a hosted blog on wordpress.com using a custom domain name (i.e., use rolicakes.com, don’t use rolicakes.wordpress.com). It allows you to set up with little or no technical knowledge and also allows you the freedom to grow should you need more control of your domain functionality. The folks over at wordpress.com also have excellent support should you need any technical assistance.
Every business should have a website because, as already implied, search engine marketing is letting the world know that you have the most relevant product/service/info to meet your customer’s needs. A website allows you to store that marketing collateral (rank) in a medium you own and have the most control over. While you can optimize your Shopify store, there are boundaries to the levels of access or control you have over that collateral. The most sustainable way to control the asset long-term is to own your website.
Social Media Handles: A social media handle gives visibility to your website. Social media platforms by their nature have larger communities of people to engage with. Their value is like any other traditional means of broadcasting a message – access to a larger audience. Share links from your website to social media. Add a link to your website in your bio. Your potential customers can follow these links to your website and see a larger collection of your offerings in a presentation style you control. After they have visited, cookies from your website can be placed in their browser and they are likely to see your business (website) when they search for a service you provide.
Google My Business: Google My Business is a business directory run by the largest search engine in the world. It is bound to be useful for sales. All you need to set up is a Google account you will tie your business to. Have you ever noticed when you search (on Google) for certain businesses, you see a prominent listing that has opening hours, location on maps phone numbers, services offered, and the like? That listing is controlled by Google My Business. The beauty of Google My Business listings is that your business would also get shown for some searches that did not explicitly request for your business but are looking for a service you offer. A Google My Business profile is free to set up and can be done like you would set up any other social media account.
Google Webmaster and Bing Webmaster – for the more advanced: This is slightly more technical and you may need a professional to help you at certain stages. To oversimplify, due to the sheer size of information that search engines have to find these days, they have come up with a way that site owners can help inform them of their site. It speeds up the process of indexing (search engines storing information about a website). Webmaster tools help you determine for search engines, the type of content on your website, their order of importance, and arrangement. This in turn helps the search engine show your site for searches that are relevant (your target audience) to your business. As a bonus, they provide tools to help carry out technical tasks of search engine optimization.
Yoast SEO: If you eventually build a website using WordPress, a plugin you should get is Yoast SEO. It scans all your website pages and offers direction on changes that can be made to improve your SEO score. It offers a freemium (Free to Premium services) pricing model, so you can get a lot of great tools for free. It would also provide analysis for new pages that you can decide to add to the site to ensure that they are optimized for search even before publishing.
XML sitemaps: Sitemaps are are a listing of pages on your website. They are placed on the root of your website and submitted to search engines to help them identify all the content on your website. Sitemaps for search engines are usually formatted in a mark-up language called XML. In the old days, you had to prepare this document yourself. I remember preparing my very first sitemaps to index a website by hand. Presently, a tool allows you to auto-generate this document for free (up to a certain size). You can access it at xml-sitemaps.com. It is a great tool to have when you are preparing to index your site. All you need to do is provide your website URL and it does all the heavy lifting.
Google Trends: Google Trends is a service that lets you see what people are searching for globally and locally. You can use it to find out what needs you can cater for that are in demand at any given point in time.
Google Pagespeed Insights: For the more technically inclined. It provides an analysis of your website and offers suggestions of what you need to do to improve your SEO rank. For most of its suggestions, you will need an SEO or Web Development pro to assist. However, you would also see some low-hanging fruits (suggestions) that you can pluck yourself.
Google Ads: The first tool I advise people to mess with when they want to begin search engine marketing. It will require some study to understand the jargon. However, Even if you are going to hire a pro to manage it for you, a little background knowledge can help and not hurt.
There is a myriad of other tools that you can use to make your SEO/SEM less painful. Some of them are premium tools such as SEMrush or Moz. The major criteria for making my list is they had to either offer some free services or were so important you just needed to hear about them. As you mature in the process you will have more information to decide what you should pay for and what you shouldn’t.