Google may not be the only search engine out there, but all the others are tiny in comparison. Over 90% of search engine traffic in the UK comes from Google, and that figure isn’t getting any smaller, despite the best efforts of Microsoft and Yahoo. So you need to make sure Google views your site in the best possible light if you want to appear near the top of the search results page. Make it easy on yourself by taking a few steps to ensure Google prefers your site over those of your competitors.
1) Use Google’s free stuff
Google favours those who make the effort to use all those services and widgets they spent so long lovingly crafting. They’re pretty handy for website owners, so you’d be daft not to use them. Put a Google Map on your contact page as a neat way to show your customers where you are. Register your business with Google places to make sure you show up in local business searches. Place Google Analytics code in your pages to help you see who is visiting your site, where they’re coming from and which pages they look at. Google owns YouTube, so make a video about your business and upload it to YouTube, then embed it into your site. Doesn’t have to be broadcast quality, shoot it on a phone camera if you like. Just something short and sweet telling people what makes your business unique.
2) Use Google Webmaster Tools
Sign up for a free Google account and you’ll have access to Google Webmaster Tools. This allows you to check indexing status and optimise the visibility of your site. There’s a useful set of statistics and information related to keywords, errors, inbound links and crawl rate. You can tweak settings within the control panel, and use the information to tweak your pages.
3) Get a Google Sitemap
A Sitemap is an XML file that you can place on your server to help Google find and index all the pages on your site. You can obtain a free sitemap file from a number of sites who will generate one automatically for your site. Simply upload it to your server and register your sitemap within Google Webmaster Tools.
4) Update your site frequently
A web site isn’t a ‘set it and forget it’ thing. Google favours dynamic sites with constantly changing content. You need to add new stuff regularly if you want to be seen as a relevant source of up-to-date information. This means an active news section or a dynamic ‘shop front’ with special offers and seasonal updates. If none of that applies to your site, don’t despair. One of the easiest ways to keep your content updated is to get a blog, like the one you’re reading now. You can attach it seamlessly to your main site, and regular posts with tips, advice or news relating to your industry will go a long way towards showing Google that you’re a mover and shaker. Your Google ranking will reflect this.
5) Make your website big
Google likes big sites with lots of pages. Don’t just list the services your business offers as bullet points on a singles page, split them into categories, explain what you offer in depth and give each service its own page. As mentioned above, a regularly updated blog will rapidly expand the size of your site.
6) Identify your images
Picture recognition software may be getting more sophisticated, but Google can’t tell what an image is just by looking at it. You need to give it a helping hand. Make sure you make use of ‘alt tags’ the hidden description behind the image that you sometimes see as a pop-up when you ‘mouse over’ an image. Descriptive file names are good too; xyzcompany-logo.jpg is better than zD242dd4ac.jpg.
7) Identify yourself
Google likes to know who you are, because it wants to be able to show its users a site from a legitimate business run by a real person with a real address and phone number. So make sure you display a Contact Us page with all your details, thus reassuring both your customers and Google.
8) Use social networking
Google can index pages in Twitter and Linkedin, and can find names and other information from Facebook. If you’re an active user of social networks, you’ll benefit from a lot of added exposure, particularly if you sprinkle links to your web pages all over the place. Other lesser known networks are worth a look too.
9) Make your pages lean and clean
Google prefers websites that load fast. Optimise your graphics so the file sizes are as small as possible, and make sure your HTML, CSS and JavaScript code is clean and efficient, without any unnecessary bloat. Any web designer worth his salt will know how to do this. Avoid the use of Flash unless absolutely necessary, it rarely brings anything to the party, slows pages down and can’t be read by Google. Plus it can’t be viewed by mobile devices, including the iPad.
10) Get plenty of inbound links
Google will regard your site as important if it has a lot of other sites linking to it. So much so, that link popularity can have a dramatic effect on your page rank. So get out there, connect with other site owners, and get them to link to your site. But do it with sites that are relevant to your industry, and make sure they’re popular, good quality sites. A scattergun approach with low quality, low traffic sites will do more harm than good.
Conclusion
If any or all of this sounds complicated or unfamiliar to you, just ask your Web Designer, who should be able to help you. If you need any further advice, contact me and I’ll be happy to help out.
Tags: Google, Google Webmaster Tools, SEO, Social Media, Website Maintenance
