The days where you could simply whack up a couple of pages on the web and expect to get traffic and hungry buyers are now long gone, at least if there’s any type of competition. And let’s be honest for the most part if there isn’t any competition there’s probably no web traffic.
Getting results online is kind of like a gym membership. You join a gym with the expectation that you’ll get fitter and healthier. Problem is you actually have to show up at the gym and workout. You can’t just sit at home eating bags of chips and consuming Coke and expect to see any results – it just won’t happen.
So how do you avoid your website being an epic fail?
There are 4 main things that effect your websites SERP or Search Engine Ranking Position.
1. Content
Content is king. One of the key factors Google looks at is the volume and type of content that your website has. The more topical and relevant info you have on your website the better. Some people think that people don’t want to read much website copy, but there’s no such thing as to long web copy, only boring copy.
If you were given the opportunity to pitch your product or service to win $25,000 worth of business and you could choose 3 minutes or 20 minutes to present your case, how long would you like? The longer the better right? The more time you have to present your value proposition and get involvement from your prospect the more likely you are to win business. Make your web copy engaging and interesting.
Google looks at the keywords that are used on the page as well. But don’t go overloading keywords (1-3% keyword saturation is best). It reads very badly and Google will knock you back. Try and keep each page about a specific topic as well – the more focused you are the better.
Google also loves changing and new fresh content. The more often you update and add content the better. That’s one reason Blogs are so popular.
2. Domain Name Age
The older your domain name is, the better. Older domain names normally have more trust and have a higher PR or Page Rank. This is a number which Google allocates to a website page in relation to the level of trust, value and credibility it thinks your website page has. The higher the PR the better.
Some people will buy aged domain names i.e. domains that have been live on the web for sometime because they know that they’ll rank more quickly.
3. Back Links
Back links are links from other websites to yours. The more links you have that go from other sites to your website the better. The higher the PR Google gives those websites and the text used to reference your website the more value those links have.
I normally explain it like this: A child goes to a new school and hangs out with the popular kids and therefore becomes popular. It’s not how many kids that child knows, but how many kids know that child.
4. On Page SEO
On page SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the combination of good urls, topical text, links within the site, back end info like meta tags and a website map, clean website code and text laid out correctly. Of course there’s a little more to it than that but that’s the essence of it.
So if your website isn’t ranking on Google, Yahoo or Bing, you’re going to want to fix these four things. Well, three, because you can’t change your domain names age unless you buy a whole new one.
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