I’ve received questions about search engine visibility so often that I decided to distill the most important points of my previous article I can’t find my site; Search engine help! If you’d like more details about this topic, read that article.
Here’s the checklist:
- At a google search type in “site:myhomesite.com” and see how many of your pages are turned up. If your site does not show up you may have a problem — talk to a web pro who understands search engines.
- If you got results for your site that is a critical first step. Next, make sure the words on your site relate to your services, products, and interests. It is words that search engines learn for each site. Conversely, they don’t know what is in an image, they don’t know what a “flash” intro (or whole site) looks like. No, they can’t even watch videos! Search engines need WORDS. So if you sell construction equipment make sure words like “jackhammer”, “crane”, “miter saw”, and “workers compensation” show up in your pages.
- Keep the content updated. The fresher your content is the more “interesting” it will look to the search engines. Search engines list the most “interesting” sites first. Note: Search engines will not see new content immediately without some special work — not covered here. Let’s just say if you add a blog to your site and keep it up to date with weekly posts the new posts will be picked up pretty quickly. Maybe days. Maybe less.
- Don’t try to be number one in a list of search results from a generic search. Try to be number one for your geographic region or your specialty. Google will automatically do some localizing of results but many good customers will search for “custom homes newville” or “custom homes Pennsylvania” Or “granite counters newville” maybe “new construction pa” You CAN be number one for those searches.
- Find ways to get people to talk about you online. Get news outlets, bloggers, and other local business websites to link to your site. When others reference your site online (link to it) it ads “interestingness” in the eyes of the search engines. You’ll keep moving up in ranking.
- Looking for more? Ask a web specialist to review your site and offer recommendations on how to improve its search ranking.
- Try “paid search”. Google adwords is a powerful tool. You can decide how much you’ll pay for each “click” you get on your ad delivered for certain search word combinations. This is called “Pay Per Click” advertising. Make sure to limit the geographic area you advertise in if your business only sells locally.
- If you’re really technical, sign up your site for Google’s webmaster central and learn how Google sees your site.
Is your site as high in the search engine results as you would like? If not, contact us we can help.