It’s time to stop thinking of Google as the enemy. In many ways, they are a website’s best friend. But it’s your job to have a Google-friendly site. And there are some good initial ways to do that.
First, are you in Google’s index? Do a “site:” search for your web address. For example, “site:mymarketsolution.com” comes up in the results when you search; whereas, “site:ithoughtihadagoodsitebutidont.org” does not (hopefully because it doesn’t exist.) Most sites are. If yours is not, don’t be alarmed. You’ll get there. Sometimes it is a matter of being a brand-new site. If that’s not the case, consider how many links you have to and from other quality websites. Also, look at the design; a well-designed site, such as one built on WordPress, is typically easy for Google to crawl. Is your web server too slow? If you get time-outs when your site is trying to load, this could prevent the crawlers from doing their job. Also, there are policies that can block Google from crawling some or all pages on your site if they are enabled. Enabling these would be intentional (I can’t think of a reason to do that for anyone who wants traffic… so don’t.)
If you have checked those items off your list, then the good news is it’s only a matter of time before your site is indexed. Almost no one has to “ask” Google to include their site. It’s free and automatic. Just because you’re indexed, however, does not mean you will come up on page one when someone searches for your industry or services. As mysterious as the algorithms may seem, at the heart is Google’s attempt to understand quality and meaning.
Therefore, if you want a Google-friendly site, you also need a human-friendly site. Think of your pages as if you were a visitor and prospective customer.
- What terms will you search for? Those should be throughout your site.
- What content are you looking for/what do you want to know? Have user-friendly posts, pages, and other writing on your site. Make sure it is relevant.
- What would make you irritated with a website? Avoid misleading information, irrelevant pages and content, super-redundancy for the sake of keywords, and omissions. Make the site easy to navigate and in a logical format.
- How usable is the site? Make sure all your links are live. Give all images alternate descriptions. Make sure your site speed is optimized. Make it dynamic, that is, fully usable for all types of devices. Use HTTPS if at all possible. Check for visual accessibility by using a screen-reader.
Even more so, be genuine. Your website should focus on what you have to offer and why it is different or special. Deceptive and bad content not only turns off humans, it turns off Google as well.
- Have original content.
- Avoid redirects.
- Don’t hide text or links on pages.
- Use only pertinent keywords.
- Check your site regularly for hacking and get rid of bad content and spam right away.
Once you are confident in what your site has to offer the public, it may be time to see what an SEO expert has to offer your site. See our next post for things to consider when championing your SEO.