How To Put My Business On Google
- Patience. Google sends Googlebots (crawlers) to websites to index and rank website content for its search engine. One general characteristic Googlebots look for is consistent effort to produce high-quality content and a high-quality user experience over time. Sudden explosions of new content — especially substandard content — and sudden bursts of new links pointing to your website may lead Google to believe you’re trying to “trick” it into thinking your website is more rank-worthy than it is. So, giving your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts enough time to succeed is a fact of life when asking how to put my business on Google.
- Skill. Google (and all other search engines) uses a unique algorithm to rank content in its SERPs (search engine results pages). Google’s algorithm consists of more than 200 ranking factors, and nobody outside Google knows exactly what they are and exactly how much weight each factor is given. Thus, SEO professionals have to collect and analyze data — as well as rely on experience and testing — to implement the best mix of strategies and tactics to get your website pages to move up in rankings. How do I get ranked on Google? The answer is different for every website.
How to Get Business on Google — Don’t Overlook This Point!
How to get business on Google is an entirely different question than how to put my business on Google. What we mean here is simple: Getting your web pages to rank highly on Google is great — as long as those high rankings translate into new business.
In other words, the purpose of high rankings is to drive qualified traffic from Google’s search engine results to your website, where these visitors will either become sales leads or online customers. SEO is all about conversions.
With this very important point in mind, before asking, how do I get my website higher on Google, ask the question: How do I get my website better able to convert? Usually, improving the persuasive power of your website includes having strong calls to action, simple navigation, easy-to-read text, appealing color schemes, attractive design and other features that enhance the user experience. Don’t start investing in SEO before your website is a lead- or revenue-generating machine.
How Do I Rank on Google — Specifics
Although we do not know the precise nature of the Google algorithm, we know enough after two-plus decades of SEO experience and data analysis, along with statement Google has given us, to make many accurate recommendations about how to improve rankings. Here are the three most important.
- Backlinks. Google puts lots of emphasis on the number and quality of links pointing to your website. A site with a lot of links from highly regarded websites indicates to Google that your site is prominent in its field and provides helpful and reliable information. This is the kind of content that Google wants its search engine users to see! You can debate the true value of backlinks from now until doomsday, but Google has relied on backlinks as a linchpin of its algorithm from the beginning — and this is unlikely to change. Most SEO campaigns spend a lot of time building links, usually through obtaining listings on valuable directories and producing content that is published on other websites with links back to your website.
- Keyword strategy. Keywords are the phrases people use when searching on Google. If you sell brown widgets, you want Google users to find your content when they are searching for brown widgets. But the two important questions are:
- Which keywords (e.g., “brown widgets,” “aerodynamic brown widgets,” “brown widgets on sale’) are the best on which to focus your attention?
- Which specific page of website content to you want to focus your attention on for those strategic keywords?
It’s crucial to select the right keywords and then to associate a specific page (usually a product or product group page) with those keywords in your SEO campaign. Many companies overlook this and try to drive all Google traffic to the home page — or worse, to no page in particular. Big mistake! The more specific and relevant your web page content is to the search, the more likely Google will rank it highly.
- Website issues. Technical flaws in your website that prevent Googlebots from indexing and ranking your content properly, and issues that create a bad user experience, can pretty much make your content invisible on SERPs. A vast number of factors can interfere with Google in this regard, including:
- Duplicate content that makes it hard or impossible for Google to determine which version of a web page to rank
- Missing or poorly optimized Meta titles (HTML code that describes the content of each website)
- Confusing internal link structure
- Confusing navigation
- Slow page-loading speed
- Lack of mobile-friendly design and usability
- Lack of an XML sitemap
- Lack of HTTPS
- Poorly written content
Things can go wrong on your website any time, so it is necessary to periodically monitor site performance for these and other issues. The fixes can be easy and inexpensive, or sometimes quite time consuming and expensive. This is where that skill issue becomes so important in terms of how to put my business on Google — it takes a skilled SEO to know which website issues must be fixed, which should be fixed (budget allowing) and which need not be fixed. The answer is going to be different for each website.
These three areas of general focus are the meat and potatoes of SEO. If you want to know, how do I get my website higher on Google search, stay focused here and give your efforts 6-12 months to kick in — you should be on your way to more organic traffic and more conversions.
To discuss how to put your business on Google, contact us now or call 855-883-0011.