By the end of President Clinton’s first year in office, there were 623 websites on the internet. Competition was not very stiff. In the early years, just having a website at all did wonders for your bottom line.
Our clients often ask us how search engines rank one page against another. Google’s exact concoction for search criteria is ever changing and secret, however there are some best practices to follow when building your site to ensure decent search results.
1. Quality of words.
People search using words, so the words on your site should reflect how you want to be found. If you are selling horses and don’t have the word horse anywhere on your site, you have a problem. Some sites, especially sites built entirely in programs like flash have unreadable text that cannot be searched. You can test your site by trying to select the text on the screen, if you can select it, its probably searchable.
2. Frequency of updates
If you have not updated your site in 10 years you are going to be ranked lower then the competitors who update their site every day.
3. Quantity and quality of inbound links
If lots of sites are linking to you that tells Google that you must be more relevant than the competitor that noone is linking to. Simply creating new social media sites such as a Facebook page or Twitter for your business creates some of this inbound activity.
4. Site Structure
Title Tag, H1 Tag, where and how your text is placed on the page are all part of your site’s structure. Google rewards good structure and takes points for sites that are built improperly. There is always room for improvement and the rules are always changing.
Google takes all of this and many more criteria, mashes it up with fancy algorithms and formulas and that is what spits back the results. The good news is with some simple updates to your site and strategy you can improve this. Keep in mind that trying to manipulate Google or take advantage can sometimes lead to dire consequences, Google is known to punish offenders.
If you would like to discuss your online strategy send me an e-mail at chris@vibrantcompany.com or call Bijoy at 516.581.7152 and we can discuss making your site SEO friendly.
