How to get your business higher up Google

By Jo van Vuuren — Fractional CMO

There is no secret formula for climbing Google’s rankings, and anyone selling you one is not being honest. What works is straightforward, if not always quick: answer the questions your customers are actually asking, make your website easy to use, and earn genuine attention from other websites. Here is what that looks like in practice.

What actually helps a business rank higher on Google?

Google’s job is to work out which pages best answer a search, and to put the most trustworthy, useful ones near the top. The businesses that rank well tend to be the ones that make Google’s job easy: clear content that answers real questions, a website that works properly, and other people online who back them up. There is no shortcut around doing those three things well.

Are you answering what your customers actually search for?

Start with the words your customers actually type, not the words you would use internally. A café owner might think in terms of “artisan coffee”, but a hungry local is searching “coffee shop near me open now”. Write your pages around the real questions and phrases customers use, and answer them directly and simply near the top of the page.

A simple exercise: write down the ten questions you get asked most often by phone, email or in person. Those are very likely close to what people are typing into Google too.

Is your website fast, mobile-friendly and easy to use?

A slow, cluttered or confusing website works against you, however good your content is. Most people are searching on a phone, so check your site loads quickly and reads well on a small screen. Make sure it is obvious how to find opening hours, contact details, or the thing someone came to buy: if a visitor cannot find it in a few seconds, Google notices they leave quickly, and so do they.

Are other websites mentioning or linking to your business?

Google treats mentions and links from other websites as a vote of confidence: a sign that real people vouch for you. For a small business, that might mean being listed in a local directory, featured by a supplier or trade body, covered by a local news site, or simply linked to by a happy customer with their own website. None of this needs to be complicated: good relationships and good work naturally earn a few of these over time.

Are you keeping your content fresh, and what is realistic to expect?

Websites that are never updated start to fall behind ones that are kept current, so revisit your key pages every so often to check they are still accurate and useful. Add new pages when you have something genuinely new to say: a new service, a common question you keep being asked, a helpful guide.

Be realistic about timing: this is steady, compounding work rather than a quick fix. Expect to see movement over months rather than days, and treat each improvement as one more brick in a wall that gets stronger over time.