Almost every business today has a website, even if they do not offer shopping online. A website with store hours, basic product information and contact information for the business is the bare minimum needed these days.
Having a well designed website is a must for any business owner. What consumers buy and how they buy has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years to rely heavily on the internet.
Even if you don’t offer online shopping you still need your business information to show up in Google!
And, nothing is worse for a business that does offer internet sales and revenue from their website, to not show up in a Google search. If you’re wondering why your website doesn’t appear on Google Search, here is why.
How to Get Your Site to Appear in Google Search
If you are launching a new website or your website is not being listed for some reason, follow these tips to get your site indexed, seen, and ranked in Google.
Getting your Website Ready
If you have a new website, make sure you get it ready to go. Have it designed, tested, and ready for Google to find it.
Check to make sure that all of your links work and are pointing to the right place. Having wrong or broken links can hinder your site’s ability to be found quickly by search engines.
A free tool to use to check for broken links is BrokenLinkChecker – simply enter your website address and complete the security captcha.
TIP: Be sure to check the box choosing to report all occurrences of each dead link.
(This will take longer to run the test, but you will get a specific URL for every single broken link – easier when you go to fix them)
Make sure the formatting, content and layout of your website looks good for your potential visitors and created with them in mind.
Having good content is a key factor in Google finding and indexing your website.
Create a Sitemap and Upload It to Google Search Console
Whether your website is new or not, you should always do these next two items in order to have your website found in Google.
Get an XML Sitemap created and then submit the sitemap to Google Search Console. A sitemap shows Google what pages your website has and where to find them on the site.
Sign in to Search Console, you will see Sitemap in the left hand column.
Find your sitemap URL which will be something like http://yoursitename.com/sitemap_index.xml
Then click Submit.
An updated sitemap will help your website show up in Google searches quickly if it is created and submitted correctly.
There are many tutorials out there that can show you how to create one and how to submit it properly.
Optimize Your Website
Once you have a sitemap uploaded and your site is free of errors, your next step should be to optimize it. This means using SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization.
You should optimize your site with the keywords you want to rank for. Write your title tag, meta description and your heading tags to include keywords.
You should add images with alt text that include keywords. Doing this allows Google to see exactly what you want your site to rank for.
However, you should write them naturally and not stuffed with keywords. Write them for your visitors and not for the search engines.
Best practice is to use good, descriptive language that will entice users to click on your site. Having a call to action in your description tag will help and is always good business practice.
Does this sound like Greek to you? That means you need to learn SEO! And here is a great book – Debbie’s books are full of great information you need to know.
So take a look at Easy OnPage SEO here. Start with the OnPage SEO and implement it on your website.
Build Links
Lastly, you should build backlinks pointing to your site. Getting natural links through promotions or viral pieces (videos, infographics, memes, etc) are ideal, but you will need to get other links through hard work and good link building tactics.
Links are very powerful in sending the right signals to Google. You should strive to have many different types of links that are pointing back to your site.
Too many links of one type could hurt you. It will take work, but, as long as you see it as a continuous process, your link building efforts will show improvement and results with regards to your site being indexed and seen in Google’s search results.
Debbie’s second SEO book, Easy Backlinks for SEO will show you the many different ways of getting backlinks. She goes into great detail about what kind of backlinks you should be striving for.
Psst…I can’t resist letting you know about another of Debbie’s fantastic books. And let’s face it, we could all save ourselves a LOT of time doing things properly in the first place!
She takes you through 45 “lessons” she learned working on her website that ended up getting her over $20,000 a month!
Write Consistently on Your Website
Google likes consistency, so think about how often you want to publish a new article on your website. Once a week is ideal, but you could do a new post every two weeks.
The important thing is to be consistent. So if you decide to publish every two weeks, do that. Don’t publish one post one week, 3 posts the next week, and none for the next two weeks.
Consistency is key!
So, if you’re wondering why your website doesn’t appear on Google Search, now you know. These are a few things you need to do in order to get your website seen in Google’s search results.
There are other things like having a social presence, good internal linking, fresh content, and some tweaking of on page elements that can help send the right signals to Google that your website is live, available and relevant.
Do these things, and you will see your site indexed by Google and increase your visitors so you can then focus on converting them into lifetime customers.
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