Page Ranking Steps for Success

There is a lot of information about how to get your website ranked to page one of Google.  It can become overwhelming and is easy to forget the basics. Just a quick note, Google updates page ranks every 3 months.  Make sure your site is in a position to gain rank.

Matt Cuff of Google is a great source of information for just about every topic surrounding Search Engines (at least Google). 

Here are the steps to getting those higher rankings.  Each step involves their own set of rules and targets.

Complete Web Solutions can provide you with the information you need to optimize your website and drive traffic to your business.

Page Ranking Steps

Creating a website that is optimized to be search engine friendly
 
The design of your website needs to be optimized for the search engines this is true but the rule of thumb is to create a website for those customers that will be visiting your site first then, after your pages are user friendly, make sure that the search engines understand how to read your pages and navigate your site.

Include a site map for the search engines.

This makes it easier to crawl and you will find that your pages are indexed quicker.

Search engines are getting better at understanding the concept of your content.  You need to have good content that is relevant to your customers.  Google loves new content.  You need to update your site content frequently.  This is not to say that you need to go in and change a title or a few words in your articles/blog.   This means that content optimizing will be an ongoing part of your business model.

Find and use the right keywords for the right visitors.

Keyword research is a daily task when ranking is a goal.  You will be creating content for your page around these keywords.  Your goal is to show up in the Google search under hundreds or even thousands of searches. 
You will need to think like your idea customer, what would they type in to the search bar to find your product or service.  Choosing a one word term like “shoes” is not advisable. 
First, that term is too vague and the competition is too high.  You stand little chance of ever coming up on the first page of Google for this type of keyword.  Instead, look for keywords that are more specific.  Put yourself in the minds of your customers, what do they search for?  Maybe they look for “the best running shoes for sand” or “high heels that won’t kill my feet”.  These search phrases will provide you with lower completion, higher search rankings and the ability to create good content for your website.

Use those keywords in the correct places on your website.

Now that you have a great set of keywords it’s time to make sure there in the correct places.
Many platforms allow you to create the URL, Page Title, keywords and descriptions for each page.  If your site was built on a platform that only allows a site wide description and set of keywords then you will lose out on optimizing each page for its targeted content and keywords.

Once you’ve built up a nice selection of good content, you can begin to link your pages within your website.  What I mean by that is, let’s say that you have written an article about the perfect shoes for running in sand.  Within the body of this article you may find that you reference other topics that you have also written great content about.  Take this opportunity to create a link from one article to the other.  This not only shows the search engines that you are interested in really providing great information to your visitors but it answers questions that a visitor may not have known to ask before coming to your site.  You are building authority and trust with your potential buyers.   Note: Placing you keyword in the first paragraph will give that page a higher ranking.  

Don’t load your content with the chosen keyword every three words or turn your article into a keyword loaded link page.  You content needs to be naturally written.  Creating content for the purpose of pushing your keyword for search engine ranking is not your goal.   Remember that you want to rank so you will gain traffic, once your visitors hit your site you need to have great content that will peak or get their attention.

Submit your website to the major search engines and directories

Okay, now that you have your site optimized, it’s time to let the search engines know about you.  Submitting your site to the search engines is time consuming but it is a necessary task. 
You may get discouraged that your site is not popping up overnight. It can take weeks or months to be included in some search engines and directories.  Keep in mind that your site is 1 of 600 million sites on the web. Google is pretty quick when it comes to finding the new content. 

It’s going to take time for sites like Alexa.com to update your site stats; they tend to push new stats only once a month.  So just keep doing what you’re doing and in no time you will start to see amazing results.

One way to judge your progress is to Google your site.  I don’t mean to type your site name into the search bar.  I mean to type your entire URL into the search bar  http://yoursitename.com/  what comes up is the number of search results found for your URL.  You can check this every few days and see that your efforts are paying off.  

Create a good link building strategy

Once you understand how Google works you will see why having links to your site carries so much weight.  You don’t want to take short cuts here and this is the step that is most abused.

When I talk about link strategy I don’t mean go out and spam every forum or site that exists to get your page link included in that site.  Link farms and black hat linking techniques will not only have no benefit to your page ranking but can actually work against you.

For help with understanding the art of building quality links to your site, call our office 719 302 5029, we will walk you through the dos and don’ts of link building.

Continue to create great content for your customers and post and share this content to your social media accounts.

If you find that you have no interest or skill in the content department, don’t panic.  It’s understandable that when you decided to open your business it was because you were an expert in that field.  If you are going to compete in the online marketplace though you must play by the rules. You could, of course, opt to ignore content all together and focus on pay per click and ad campaigns.  Most business will allocate a portion of their budgets to these campaigns; however isn’t the goal here to be able to spend less money and get more customers? 

If you’d like to talk more about any of the areas that were touched on in this article we are happy to help.

Complete Web Solutions is located in the United States and our entire staff is experienced in every aspect of online business.  Call today 719 302 5029