Online visibility is a crucial part of getting your business found and start making online sales. Once you have created a website, you need to take the right steps to get it listed in the Google search results otherwise potential customers won’t be able to find you!
Whilst having a website does put things in motion and eventually Google will find your website without your input, there are ways to speed things up and improve the quality of your website at the same time.
Submit Your Sitemap
Google bots will eventually find your website; however, this can take some time. Google bots are in high demand, it is estimated that 550,000 websites are created every day worldwide! You can speed this up by submitting your sitemap to Google directly, giving them a heads up that you have a new website or new pages on your website that need to be crawled.
Firstly, check if Google has actually already listed your website in the search results. You can do this by entering site:mywebsite.com into Google. If pages of your website appear then Google has indexed your website. If no search results are returned, you need to log in to your Google Search Console account and submit your XML sitemap.
Gain backlinks
To gain high rankings in the search results you need to gain high quality links back to your website from authoritative sources. Not only does this improve the SEO of your website, this also directs Google to crawl your website and list it in the search results. By placing links around the web to your website, when Google finds them links, they will follow the link back to your website which they will then list in Google Search.
Depending on your industry, the best places to obtain backlinks is niche-specific directories (of high quality) and providing content to authoritative websites in your industry with a link back to your website in an author bio. Not only will these practises gain you backlinks but also help you spread the word of your business to readers.
It is also good practise to add a link to your website on all of your social media profiles, so any potential customers who find your social profiles have a direct link to your website.
Optimise With Keywords
In order for potential customers to find your website for the products or services you offer, you need to mention relevant keywords on your website. If you sell women’s handbags then you should use the keyword ‘womens handbags’ and similar variations. By doing so, Google will associate your website with these terms and show your website in the search results when these terms are searched. It is important to remember that keywords alone don’t guarantee page 1 rankings, but are effective as part of a SEO strategy.
Optimise Your Meta Tags
As well as ensuring that your on page content is optimised, it is important that your meta tags are optimised too. Your meta tags are the title and description that appear next to your website in the search results. Your title tag and meta description should explain what the page is about and encourage the user to click through to your website. By improving your search listing you will help Google understand the purpose of your page and where they should rank you.
Do you need help getting found by Google and overtaking your competitors in the search results? Call the team now to discuss our services and find out how we can help!