“Why is my Google search different?”

I recently redesigned a website for one of my favorite local consultants. After a few months, he started receiving phone calls from people that said they found him online. He and I were both excited about this because the intention of the redesign was to add on-page search engine optimization. I originally suggested the redesign because I felt his website was missing opportunities to attract local business by not using SEO strategies.

He also wanted to test how well the SEO in his redesigned website was working so far, so he asked a friend to use Google to search for one of the key phrases we optimized for. The friend searched on both his phone at home and from his computer at work. Notably, my client’s business ranked differently in the two different searches. So my client reached out in curiosity to ask why.

Here are some reasons why Google searches can differ:

1. Different search engines

Local search results in Google are the results with a map. When clicked, these links go to Google Business Listings unless you click the “website” buttons.

My client’s friend could have been using different search engines on his phone and computer. Each search engine has its own ranking. Google also takes into account some additional factors when ranking websites in mobile results.

2. Searching from different locations

Google wants to give you the closest businesses to your location. Although we are using keywords for a larger/major city near his location where he gets most of his work, he is actually located in a nearby smaller city. Google Business Listings (GBL) have a lot of impact on “local business results” and his GBL map location is of the actual city where he’s located, not where he gets most of his business.

I had hoped his business would rank differently in Google searches after the website redesign

Fortunately for me, my client is very happy with his website’s improvement in rank. It’s only been a few months so we hope to see better results in the future.

Some reasons his website may not be ranking that high yet:

1. It hasn’t been very long since we completed the redesign and sent his sitemap to search engines.

Search engines need time to index pages and could still be using old results.

2. There’s a lot of competition in his field.

Many competitors may have had optimized websites for a long time.

3. The competition may be getting more clicks.

For a variety of reasons, people may choose to click on his competitors more. They do this because the description may relate more to their needs or maybe they’ve heard of the company they chose. When more people click on your page in the search results, it tells search engines that your website is a relevant result to those search words.

4. My client’s website doesn’t have a lot of pages for search engines to index.

This is a relatively small website. Much like odds, if you have more good quality pages, you have more chances of being found by search engines.

5. The words we optimized for could have a lot of competition.

This isn’t likely the case in this redesign because I chose words with low competition. But it doesn’t take many listings optimized for the same word to make you appear on another page (or below the “more results” button in the local results).

6. His Google Business Listing could possibly use some improvement.

Google’s local searches depend a lot on information from these listings. We decided to look deeper at his listing.

Improving my client’s search engine ranking

Here are some of the things I suggested to my client to continually rank better and get more traffic to his website:

1. Get more links from other websites.

Having backlinks from other websites tells search engines that there must be something good about you that other people want to link to. In my client’s case he can get into directories. Social media sites should always have your website links. Doing guest blog posts on other websites can provide links to your website as well.

2. Add content regularly.

Writing blog posts and case studies- even occasionally- tells search engines that you’re an active business. If your website is shown in search results then your website is likely a good result. These new pages also add additional key phrases and more pages to index, increasing your chances of being ranked.

Harmony’s Google Business Listing

3. Send more traffic manually.

Providing links in places such as your social media posts and email marketing that are inviting to click on sends people to your website more often. The more traffic your website gets, the more search engines think it’s a desirable website to visit.

4. Improve his Google Business Listing.

We decided to look closely at his business listing to see if we can improve it because local results depend highly on these listings. In this case, one way we’ll be improving it is adding service areas to make sure the map includes a line around the nearby large city. We’ll also look at his competitors’ descriptions and his own to make sure his content is compelling.

Search engine optimization is a long and lengthy topic and is always changing. I chose to write about this topic in a way that my clients, small business owners, can utilize.

“I’m so glad that I found Harmony Website Design. Amy has been an absolute joy to work with. She built me a beautiful site and has dialed in my SEO. She is fast, professional and has a great eye for design. Besides all that, she is a very nice and a patient person to work with. I highly recommend Harmony Website Design.” ~ Doug Hudak, BAM Design Co.

Are you getting enough leads from your website?

Contact me to discuss how we can improve your search engine optimization.