Your website design looks great…. YAY!!! Then why is no one visiting your new site???
Without proper planning, your website might not be meeting the key metrics for Google's algorithms. These factors will determine whether your site ranks high on Google search results. To boost your site's visibility and accessibility to audiences and customers, you’ll want to make sure you employ the tactics below.
Beware that "Search algorithms look at many factors, including the words of your query, relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings." (Google knows its’ own algorithms best!)
Let’s flow through some of the best ways to push your site up Google's search results. But first, you have to be sure your website actually shows up on Google! To do this let’s search "site:mysite.com." In Nextwave's case, we'll input "site:nextwaveservices.com." If it doesn't come up, then you should check out the ways to submit to Google.
If your website still doesn't come up, then it's possible your site didn’t follow Google's SEO guidelines and was removed from the directory. In this case, review our tips below and to ensure your site is updated and submit it to Google again.
Feature Engaging, Relevant Content
Authentic traffic due to unique and valuable content that draws in visitors and views will raise your search rankings. This means you need unique articles, stories and images. Simply copy-pasting from other sites or using overly similar or repetitive content won't get nearly as of good results and plagiarism will be penalized.
Aside from good content, it helps if they're well-organized for audiences. If you're discussing a single topic, then have it on a single page. Another topic gets another page. This also makes it easier for Google's algorithms to "get" your site.
Make sure your write-ups aren't just streams of interconnected keywords, instead the terms you are using are relevant and sensibly used. Keyword salads will turn off audiences and the algorithms might get wise to this.
Register Your Site With Directories, Review Sites and Listings
The amount of backlinks, or other sites that link back to your site, will factor into your ranking on Google. Especially if these sites are verified, particularly major ones like Google My Business, Yelp, and search directories related to your business or website's field.
However, there are dodgy "link farms" promising unaware customers that they'll get hundreds of links. But this is obviously inorganic and such a huge number of irrelevant links will raise red flags and Google Won't Be Happy.
Organized, Informative URLs with Keywords If Possible
Generic URLs such as “mysite.com/article5” won't do anything. Whereas if the article is about orange mocha frappuccinos, then “mysite.com/orange-mocha-frappuccinos” will appear more distinct to Google's system (and to your audiences).
Unique, Keyword-Rich Metadata
Metadata is information in your site's code, it doesn't actually show up visibly in the content of a page. But you don't need to be a coder to input keywords into the metadata, a content manager system for your site like WordPress can allow non-coders to do so conveniently.
Examples of metadata fields include:
Page Titles Google considers these, so make sure your page titles contain specific terms that are relevant to your audience or potential customers. Each page title should be distinct and concise, so don't just cram keywords.
Image Alt Tags These are captions, visible and hidden, that describe the images in your post. It's good for Google as well as visually challenged people. Make sure the alt tag text is relevant to the image.
Page Descriptions Similar to image alt tags, these are brief summaries of what each page is about. These appear when you search something on Google, they are the descriptions under each result's title. They should be sensible and feature relevant keywords. This isn't just for the sake of Google but for audiences looking through their search results.
Keyword Metadata Google has stopped looking at keyword metadata since website owners tended to just cram as many keywords into the fields whether they were relevant or not. But some other search engines may still use this data.
Make Your Site Error Free
Broken links, empty pages and even spelling and grammar mistakes will not only turn-off audiences but disorganized sites can give Google a hard time in indexing your pages. An unappealing site will turn away viewers. So be sure it looks good and isn't chock full of ads.
Enable Social Media Sharing
Allowing viewers to share your website's articles and images on social media will boost authentic and organic traffic!
Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
Most people are checking websites and searching through their phones and tablets. Google even penalizes sites that aren't mobile-compatible by ranking them lower than sites that are mobile-friendly. You want to reach more people, so making it comprehensible and ergonomic or easy to navigate for mobile users is a definite must-do!
Give Google Your Site Map
Sitemaps are text files explaining the arrangement and hierarchy of your site and will help Google make sense of your page structure.
Get a Google Webmaster Tools Account
Start collecting and reviewing data on your site such as the keywords your audience are using to find you, how many views you are getting for each page and more. This will help you calibrate your own site based on the results.
Site Security
Update your website software to keep your site safe from being hacked and defaced by trolls... as well as protecting your (and your customers') vital information!
Take these factors into consideration and keep chugging away. Be patient and these efforts to make your site presentable, well organized and user-friendly will be rewarded. If you need assistance on optimizing your website to get it to the top of the list, Next Wave is here to help you!
Next Wave is a Charlotte website design company. We have been doing websites since 1998. Our teams combined experience with websites touches all areas, SEO, Social Media, Graphics, Layouts, Mobile, and much more.
We are the website design experts.