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Tuesday 26th September 2023 at 08:41 By Rob |
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You know the old saying, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?
We hate to tell you but:
... sorry!
And spammy emails promising page 1 of Google and a horde of adoring Instafans are too good to be true.
Yes, they're all just out to tell you lies and take your money.
As well as running Antiques Web Design by ph9 and other web related businesses, I also run a charity so I have a ton of email addresses and as such I get emails promising to get me to the top of Google all the time. They're just as common as the emails offering me the "best web design services", to enlarge my "downstairs area" and provide "an affair with a married woman". I'm very happily married so that's not relevant, but regardless, they're all a scam!
There may be no magic shortcuts, but it isn't all doom and gloom. You got your business where it is today through hard work and good instincts.
So by popular demand from our clients, we are going to go back over some trusted techniques to make the most of your assets.
We all want to find the most relevant results when we search online, right? And you want organic traffic to your website (i.e., without paying for ads). So, you must do what you can to get it right for Google rankings.
If you want your business to get on the first page for a specific search, your content and communication need to be spot-on.
By "content" we mean anything involving text, so:-
Improving your antiques business ranking is very doable, regardless of size or niche.
Here are the main things you need to understand:
1. Get the words right
2. Publish antiques events, blogs or press releases
3. Make the most of your content
4. Know your customers: who, where, and what do they want?
5. Get a Google Business Profile
6. Make the most of your bios
7. Get more recommendations
8. It’s not all about Google! There are lots of other ways to get visitors to your website.
When you have one of our websites or membership in our antique marketplace, Antiques Boutique, you get our hard-working team as part of your package.
Everything else (non-techy) is common sense or covered in our free advice blogs. And chances are you are already doing a lot of this.
Please don't worry if you aren’t. It is easy to get started...
The words and phrases your target clients search for should be in your website and social content. Use the right level of detail and descriptive text. Your site needs to give the reader the information they need to complete a purchase.
Write item titles the right way to get more sales and better rankings.
Write in proper sentences, not keyword-stuffed gobbledegook.
We write for humans, not search engines.
Here are some examples of keywords and phrases:
You can increase your credibility in the trade by sharing your expertise in what appeals to your target clients. If you specialise in a particular period, are attending an antique fair or offering a new service, tell your visitors!
You can publish with the news feature (medium and large plans) and use the same content across email and social media.
Dotting the i's and crossing the t's to make sure your existing content is in all the right places will really do you favours if you're not doing it. This is what we call "on site" search engine optimisation.
Our antiques websites and antiques marketplace do this automatically (you don’t even need to know what it means), so if you have a website with us you can skip this step. Otherwise, take important note of the following and adjust your website accordingly:-
For example, if your item is called "19th century French antique chair", then make sure the images are named 19th-century-french-antique-chair_pic1.jpg, 19th-century-french-antique-chair_pic2.jpg, 19th-century-french-antique-chair_pic3.jpg and so on. This will help your items appear in Google image searches which can be very handy!
ALT tags are short descriptions you add to your item images. They act like labels and tell both people and search engines what the image is about, making your antiques more visible and understandable online. Again, this can be helpful with Google image searches.
Using relevant keywords in H1 and H2 tags is like highlighting the most important information on a page. It helps both your visitors and search engines quickly understand what your antiques, art and vintage pieces are all about. This can make your products more discoverable online and improve your chances of attracting potential buyers interested in antiques like yours.
Many websites are not built properly and contain either no heading tags, or stupid errors like multiple h1 tags.
Of course our websites tackle all this automatically, but we see this issue on other websites far more often than not.
Having the name of your product in the URL is like putting a clear label on the web address of your product page. It makes it easy for both customers and search engines to understand what that page is about.
Ever visited a website and it's been 10 seconds or so already and you're about to click (or tap) on something but as you do the whole page moves around because it's still loading?
... it's super annoying isn't it!
Google knows that it is annoying and measures this as "cumulative layout shift". Your website needs to be built (or adapted) to keep this to a minimum so it doesn't shift around because the more it shifts around, the lower you can rank in Google.
Google prioritises mobile-friendly websites, and websites that load quickly. You will never find a website at the top of a Google search if it is not responsive (i.e., it adapts to any size screen with no loss of function) and loads quickly without "shifting around" whilst the page is loading.
If you want to know what your visitors are doing on your website, check out our website manager (reports are available in medium and large plans).
Antique website reports:
There's also a range of other tools you can use, albeit they're a bit more "techy" and not as "antique/art dealer friendly" as ours. These include:-
A listing on Google is both super-powerful and FREE! It will help you with local search, Google rankings and acquiring reviews. Both Google Maps and Search pull from Google Business Profiles.
If you haven’t already done so, claim and verify your business ASAP.
Click here to read our guide on how to do this.
Top tips for your Google Business Profile
Both Google and Instagram offer space to write a brief description of your business. Include keywords such as location, niche, and any services you provide.
Tips to optimise your Google/ Insta description:
Personal recommendations and reviews are increasingly influential in how we spend money. And you will be surprised how many people will leave you a review if you ask them!
Ask your clients in person or share links online or by email.
Focus on growing your positive reviews on Google first, but don’t forget about other social channels.
We have clients who didn't have any reviews on Google until they had "that one pain in the ar*e" customer who decided to leave them a bad review. If that happens, act! Not only reply to the review (be diplomatic) but also ask your favourite, long standing and best clients to leave good reviews to balance it out. It really makes a massive difference.
Seeing good reviews next to a listing in Google is shown to increase clicks through to your website by an average 17% !
“Haven’t you told us that before Rob?” Yes, but I do love a relevant vintage blog!
And you can’t cheat with Instagram either
Well, that is not strictly true. As we always say, start with what you want to achieve.
So, if you want more followers, you CAN buy followers, and then you have a higher number of followers.
BUT it’s like buying advertising space for high-end antiques in a Pets at Home leaflet. It goes out to a large but irrelevant audience so it will do nothing for your sales or engagement as bought followers are fake followers. And it can harm your Instagram account as Instagram's algorithms are trained to spot accounts with fake followers and they'll show your feeds to your genuine followers less as a result!! Bad news! More on that here.
You can, however, build your Instagram following the right way:
Here are some more of our previous Instablogs:
Your Antiques Web Design website is engineered to take care of the important technical stuff. But if you really want to be best in show this is your homework!
Get a Google Business Profile, keep on top of your Instagram and Google profiles and reviews, and get people to your website by linking to it from socials and email.
We are like a dog with a bone about getting sustainable Google rankings.
But we don’t cheat. We just employ reliable, proven techniques. Contact us today to see how we can help, or apply to list on Antiques Boutique for proven results.
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