You have a shiny new web site that looks great. Now what?
It seems that many site owners, spend great amounts of time and money creating a great new web site, only to abandon it when it needs them most. No, I don't mean they just leave it alone, although that sometimes is the case as well. What I am talking about is making sure your site can be found. If no one finds your site, then why have one?
First Things First
The very first thing you need to do is go to Google and make sure your site is listed. Right now Google is the big man on campus in the search engine world, so this is the best place to start. Go to Google (http://www.google.com) and enter the following search site:www.yourwebsitename.com. Obviously you want to put in your own domain name in place of the one above.
This will give you a list of links that Google has for your site. If your site does not show up, now is a good time to submit it to Google, so they will add it. Go to the site submission page at: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
A couple of other places you may want to get listed are http://www.dmoz.org and http://www.yahoo.com. Just go there and look for the site submission links.
I'm Listed But I Can't Find My Site When I Search
Have you tried to find your site on Google by doing a search? Let's say you are a Baptist church and someone looking for a Baptist church in Knoxville enters the phrase "Baptist Church Knoxville" into the search bar. Would they find you? What if you just use "Knoxville Church"? Does your church show up then? If so, how many pages did you have to go through to get there? If you were the one looking, would you go through that many links?
Some of you may have tried this and found your site in the first couple of pages, but most of you probably did not. In the next few articles I will cover some easy adjustments you can make to your site that can have a great impact on how well your site is ranked among the search engines. The great news is that most of them are free.
In the mean time, for specific help or for a free SEO evaluation, contact me at the information listed below. I will be glad to help. |
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Another way to increase your ranking in the search engine world is to have other sites that link to your site. Search engines tend to feel that if another site finds you worth linking to, then you must be more relevant. Therefore you go up in the listings.
There are many ways to do this. Some sites to consider getting to link to you could be other "sister" companies, business directories, vendors, associational listings, etc. You will need to look around a bit to find these places and you will probably need to request to be listed, so this takes some time, but it is often free and it definitely helps your ranking.
Another thing that you can use is a link within a signature on a forum. If you are a staff member and participate in an online discussion forum, use this to your advantage. Most forums will allow you to add a signature to all of your posts with a link to your web site. Every time you post a comment you have created a new link.
The great thing about this is that it is automatic, once you set it up in your forum profile. Also, it can be retroactive. If you have a thousand posts on a particular forum and add a signature to you profile, it will often add it to all of your old posts as well. That is a sudden increase in links to your site.
Beware!
Don't try to cheat in the process of getting people to link to your site. There are sites out there that are called "link farms". All they are is a site designed to have everyone link to one another. This can have a highly negative impact on your site, The search engines look for ways that people try to beat the system and they will lower your standings and might even drop you from the listings all together. Once you have been dropped, it is hard to get back on. |
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Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a crucial step in helping people find your site. If your site is not optimized you will hardly ever be found when someone looks for a church on one of the major search engines, such as Google.
I have been amazed at the number of web sites that have little or no optimization. It is like trying to drive a car with no gas. It may be shiny and new on the outside, but it certainly isn't going anywhere.
Optimization can be an ongoing task if you wish to be in the number one spot and stay there, but with just a few small changes, most site could see a great improvement in their ranking and therefore a great increase in their traffic. After all, isn't getting visitors why you built the site in the first place?
The next few issues of this newsletter will focus on some of these topics. Topics such as:
- Title Tags
- Keywords
- Page Content
- External Links
- and more
If you would like to learn more about these subjects you can go to: Google Webmasters/Site owners Help or call us for a free SEO evaluation. I will be glad to help. |
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