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RANKING IN GOOGLE 101 What Office Vending And Micromarket Companies Need To Know

Nate Freedman SWANSEA, MA -- A few weeks ago, I was approached by a new client who owns a vending company that provides snack and drink machines, office coffee service and micromarkets. He had been evaluating his company's online presence, and, long story short, he couldn't find it in Google at all even when he searched for his company's name! Unfortunately, this is a story I hear all too often. Ranking in Google requires an in-depth understanding of search engine optimization, or SEO, and the ability...

July 23, 2018 | Nate Freedman

Nate Freedman

SWANSEA, MA -- A few weeks ago, I was approached by a new client who owns a vending company that provides snack and drink machines, office coffee service and micromarkets.

He had been evaluating his company's online presence, and, long story short, he couldn't find it in Google at all – even when he searched for his company's name!

Unfortunately, this is a story I hear all too often. Ranking in Google requires an in-depth understanding of search engine optimization, or SEO, and the ability to put SEO principles into action. It also requires the ongoing monitoring of changes to search engine algorithms, since they're becoming increasingly sophisticated and SEO requirements change accordingly. What worked two years ago doesn't work today, and what works today might not work next year.

I should know, I've been providing SEO services for over a decade.

Considering the complexities of SEO, it's understandable that my client hadn't been able to rank in the search engines without getting expert help. That's why I took some time to give him a brief overview, and since other vending companies may be dealing with the same challenges, I'm sharing what we discussed in this article.


Search Engine Rankings and SEO

A search engine ranking indicates the search engine position, or ranking, of a specific website as a result of a query in a search engine. For example, if you input "vending machines New York," then the search engine (usually Google) will give you pages of search results. The closer a specific website is to the top of the first page, the higher its ranking.

Search engine rankings are important because the majority of people search for vending companies online. The higher your ranking, the more visible your website (or landing page) is to your audience and the more leads you're likely to get.

There are two types of strategies you can use to get more visibility in search engine results: ads and SEO. Ads include both written ones and product ads that you pay the search engine to display when a user types in a specific query. Written ads typically appear at the top of the search engine results page and can be distinguished by the word "Ad" that appears before the URL. Product ads usually feature a photograph and appear on the side of the page, next to the written results. Both types of ads aim to hook the user and get them to click through to your site.

SEO is a form of Internet marketing that uses various techniques to improve organic, or unpaid, search engine results to increase the volume of traffic to your website. A good SEO strategy involves on-page SEO and off-page SEO to drive your website up the rankings. This is reflected in the following simple formula:

on-page SEO + off-page SEO = rankings

It's important to note that organic listings are much more trusted by the general public than ads, so they receive more clicks. Best of all, they're free!

Tip: Google offers a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide you can refer to for more in-depth information.




The Importance of Keywords

Both ads and SEO use keywords, which are words or phrases that your audience uses to search for your products or services. Keywords that are important to vending companies include:

•    vending machine
•    vending machines for sale
•    vending machine business
•    vending company
•    vending company software
•    coffee vending machine
•    healthy vending machine snacks

In addition to general keywords, if you do a lot of local business, it's important to include local keywords. For example, if your company is based in Atlanta, then you'd use keywords such as:

•    vending company Atlanta
•    vending machines Atlanta
•    Atlanta vending machine business

There are various keyword research tools that can help you. SERPS is one of several good free online tools. You can also use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. This is especially interesting, as it shows you how many people are bidding on a specific keyword for the paid results. Obviously, the more companies that want to use a keyword, the more people are searching for it.

How you rank in the search engines and the keywords you use directly impacts the number of leads you can generate. For example, if "office coffee" has approximately 4,400 searches per month across the U.S., any one geographic market may have 1% of the total, or approximately 44 searches per month. Now, if you rank first in Google, you might get 50% of the clicks that result from those 44 searches. That's 22 clicks. If you can convert 5% of those clicks, then you'll get one new lead per month directly from Google. And if the average lifetime value of a customer is $10,000, then your SEO delivers you an ROI of $10,000 per month!




On-Page SEO

As we've seen, a good SEO strategy involves both on-page and off-page SEO. Let's first take a look at on-page SEO.

On-page SEO is the optimization of webpages to climb up the search rankings. Those pages can be website pages, landing pages or blog posts, as long as they represent your company and your products. Note that you should always optimize every page on your website, not just your homepage!

There are various best practices for on-page SEO. It's important to keep in mind that these may change in the future due to algorithm changes.

A lot of on-page SEO focuses on content. According to the latest guidelines, content should be well-written and informative. Keywords should be used in the first few sentences and naturally throughout the text, but keyword stuffing should be avoided, as it will compromise rankings. It's helpful if you can include a keyword in a header, but only if it makes sense to the flow of the text. In addition, you should include quality links in your articles and blog posts. Quality links lead to authoritative websites, such as .gov and .edu websites, but also websites of well-known thought leaders.

On-page SEO also includes meta titles, meta descriptions and alt tags, which should ideally contain your main keyword. While you don't see these elements on the page, they provide the search engine with more information about the page. You can see meta titles in the search engine results, as well as in the tab in your browser. Meta descriptions appear below a website's URL in the search engine results. An alt tag tells the search engine what's depicted in an image.

Note that if you're updating your website's SEO, you can either ask your developer to change your meta titles and descriptions or you can use a plugin like Yoast to do it yourself.


Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO pertains to elements that aren't on your website or blog. In other words, they're not directly under your control. However, that doesn't mean you can't do anything to optimize them.

There are three types of elements you want to pay attention to: maps, directory citations and miscellaneous inbound links.

Since map listings comprise a large part of results for vending-related keywords, you want to pay attention to any listings with maps. In addition, you absolutely need to claim your Google business listing, as it's the most important factor to getting listed on Google Maps.

Directory citations are basically a mention of your company's name, address and phone number on the Internet. This mention can be in an industry-specific directory or a local business directory, but it can also be on a social media platform or app. Most directories offer business owners the opportunity to verify their business details, so that's something you should do.

Miscellaneous inbound links are links to your website from other websites. For example, if CNN Money interviews you about the uptick in demand for vending machines for health food and includes a link to your website, then that's a link from an authoritative website to yours – and that's a good thing. You can actively work towards earning inbound links through activities like guest blogging or reciprocal linking. You can also concentrate on creating authoritative content so that other sites will organically start linking to you over time.

Google assesses the quantity and quality of directory citations and inbound links to see if they're active and credible. Logically, the resulting credibility score will impact your rankings.


Can You Really Impact Your Google Rankings?

So knowing all of this, the question is of course: Can you really impact your search engine rankings?

Well, take it from my client. After I explained all of this to him, we discussed a number of changes he could make to his website. Now, within just a few short weeks, his company is already receiving leads from search engine results. So yes, you can impact your search engine rankings, as long as you know what to do.


What's Next

Are you struggling with SEO for your vending company? We're offering a free SEO competitive analysis for readers of the Vending Times. Simply fill out the contact form on our website and mention the Vending Times in your message. https://www.sherpa53.com/contact-us/

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» NATE FREEDMAN is the owner and "chief sherpa" of Sherpa53, a Swansea, MA-based digital marketing agency. He specializes in helping B2B companies generate more leads through conversion-focused websites and strategic marketing campaigns.


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