Just because you built (or we built it for you) a beautiful website, does not mean you are going to come up in Google. If you search the word “Restaurants”, you will see ‘about 1,200,000,000 results’. How does Google know that your restaurant website is better than the other 1.2 billion? We’ll give you a little insight:
Do they know?
Has Google been notified of your new website? One of the first things you should do after building a new website, is submit it to Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The best way to do this is to make a Google Webmaster Tools account and submit the sitemap. A sitemap is a data file of all of the URL’s (Pages) on your website. For those non-techy’s out there, this is as good as calling Google and saying “Hey! Did you see my new website?!”
Are they going to like it?
If it Google doesn’t like it, chances are they are going to believe that their visitors will not like it. Google looks at many aspects of your new website to determine how it ranks. Some of them are as follows:
- Code Validation (Do you use proper code? Is the website programmed professionally?)
- Ease of Use (Can the “Google Robots” crawl and navigate the site easily?)
- Visual Appearance (Does it look like a useful, successful website, or a scam?)
- Do they know where to go? (Is there a robots.txt file in place?)
- Header and Images Tags (If it’s an image, Google can’t read it. Can Google read your site?)
All of the above questions and factors are what led us to begin our search engine optimization services. SEO is something that should be tackled with a serious plan of action and should be done the right way, so that you will achieve those rankings you desire.
Is the website credible?
Google uses many factors to determine if a sites credible and has a good reputation. One, for example as a part of Google Analytics, Google can see the bounce rate of a user. The bounce rate is the percentage of people that come to the site and leave within a few seconds. If the bounce rate is high, Google doesn’t want to keep sending visitors to your “useless site”, and will try another site where they hope the visitor will get more usage out of. This process results you into becoming lower in the search engine results.
Google also looks at other factors including back-links to the site. Back-links are just what they sound like – a link, back to your website. Having links on other websites shows Google that you are not just some fly-by-night company or website, but that you have established yourself on the web.
Is it fresh?
Even if you achieve the number one spot on page 1 in Google, if you don’t keep your website fresh and updated, you will lose those results. Google is very persistent with showing their visitors the absolute most relevant content to their search query. As you can imagine, Google is going to show whatever websites they think are the most relevant, and by most relevant, that usually means updated most recently.
You should be constantly updating your content and website. Adding new blog articles frequently, updating news and events, adding new company promotions, etc. will all help reassure Google that you are not letting go of your website, and that you are here to play with the big boys! If your competition is updating their website, why are you not?
Basch Solutions, LLC has been helping clients achieve page 1 results with Search Engine Optimization in Rochester, NY since 1999. If you would like to setup a free consultation, shoot us a message, or call us today!
