10 tips for getting found on the web

Guest Blog: Nigel from Clarihon Web Services

10 tips for getting found on the web

Nigel Day - Clarihon Web Services

Nigel from Clarihon Web Services has kindly agreed to feature as a guest in our Blog and Newsletter to share his tips for making sure your business can easily be found by people looking on the web for the products or services which your business provides.

Assuming that you already have a website (otherwise give Nigel a call), making just a few simple changes by adopting some of the tips below is likely to help your website appear on the first page of Google, Bing and Yahoo etc:

1) Content is still king:

Google and other search engines really do want to present the very best and most relevant results to people using their search. Yes if you’ve paid using Google Ad Words or similar then your listing is likely to pop up in sponsored listings for as long as you keep paying; but if your site can be found and read by Google easily and genuinely represents the best match for the search submitted then you’re site will be there for free.

2) Links from other sites make a big difference:

Search engines trust sites which are trusted by other sites. If other people link to your website then search engines know about it, it improves your reputation and as a result you will appear higher up in relevant search results.

3) The phrase / term you think will help your website be found may not be what other people are searching for:

As an example, I was recently creating a website for a Singing Teacher in Plymouth, and subsequently I made sure that the phrase ‘singing teacher’ and the word ‘Plymouth’ appeared quite a few times on different pages. What I didn’t know is that very few people were searching for “singing teachers in Plymouth” and were instead searching for “singing lessons in Plymouth”. It’s well worth doing some research, Google Trends and Google Analytics can be a great place to start (ask Nigel for help if you don’t know what these are). Make a list of the terms people are most likely to use in order to find your product or service online.

4) Pick suitable pages in your site and incorporate the relevant terms from your list:

Google doesn’t just look for your index (first / main / home) page. Each page is treated by Search engines separately; so if you provide flowers and balloons, have separate pages for flowers and balloons. Incorporate the popular search terms into those specific pages.

5) Keep your website fresh:

If you have new content added to your site often then Google and Bing have to keep updating their records about your site. The more often these search engines notice that you’re site has updated content the more likely you are to appear first in search results. A blog, by the way, can be a good way of keeping your site fresh!

6) Don’t Cheat:

Search engines are clever, so whilst it’s possible to hide text crammed with key words on your website (by the text being the same colour as the background for example) and other such cheats, don’t think you can get away with it! When they notice, which won’t take long, you’ll get banned.

7) Understand that optimising your website is a process:

Don’t expect to implement a change and see an instant improvement in your ranking. Make changes and give the search engines time to catch up. See how things go and consider further changes and tweaks.

8) Measure and Monitor your website:

Most web hosts and Google Analytics offer the ability to track not just how many times your site has been visited, but also where they came from (Google, Bing, your Blog etc). They can also show you what search term was used, which page they ‘landed on’ and where they clicked next. Use this information to your advantage; if nobody is landing on your flowers page but hundreds are landing on your balloons page, perhaps your flowers page needs to be better.

9) Use Google Places:

If you receive the Zantra Newsletter, then you’ll know we have an article coming up about Google Places; what it is and why it is important to your business. So either keep an eye out for that or do some research now. It really is a great business tool and will help people find your business.

10) YouTube:

YouTube accounts for 20% of all online searches. That’s huge when you consider we have Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines all fighting for market share. So maybe it’s time to make a video for your business?

In addition to this information, which came from the Clarihon Newsletter, Nigel gave me some extra advice when we spoke recently. Firstly, what you call a page matters, for example “flowers_delivery_plymouth.html” is better than “page3.html”. Also, in the "<head>" section of a html page you have the option to give the page a title; “Daisy’s Flowers – Delivering Flowers and Balloons to Devon” would be better than “home page”; whilst this won't show up on your web page, this will appear in both Google and the title on your Web Browser.

Clarihon offer a free ‘Internet Business Review’, if driving online traffic to your site is important to your business why not let them give you some free advice?