If you want your website to be
noticed, you have to get on Google. And if you want to get on Google, you have
to make yourself as visible as possible to them and their web crawlers. Then of
course once you're on, you're going to want make sure you stay there.
Getting and staying on Google can
be broken down into three easily remembered stages -
Anyone who maintains their own
website, be it for business or pleasure, should at least be aware that SEO
(Search Engine Optimization) is a thing, even if they might not really
understand it.
They also need to know that it
comes in two flavors: on-site and off-site, and taking care of the on-site SEO
while building your website is paramount if you want it to get on Google.
On-site SEO includes everything
that you can set yourself, either behind the scenes or for public consumption;
quality content with relevant keywords, page titles, Google text snippets,
URLs, H1 or H2 headings, correctly tagged images, outbound links, and having a
sitemap.
All of these will affect your
Google rank, although some (content and titles) carry more weight than others
(alt tags on images).
As the name suggests, off-site
SEO covers everything you can do in other places online to improve your own SEO
and help you to get on Google.
One metric used by Google to
measure your ranking is the quality of your inbound links; that is, links from
other places directing people to your site.
The practice of link building has
long been a big part of any SEO campaign, although the focus has now shifted to
the subtly different but more interpersonal practice of link earning.
Advisable ways of earning the
high quality links that help you to get on Google include reaching out to
bloggers and asking them to link to your best content, or offer to write a
guest post with a link back to your site. Leaving useful, non-generic comments
on relevant blog posts with a link back to your site also works, as does being
active and respected on a forum that allows you to display your web address in
your signature or in posts.
Building a community on social
media is another great way to improve the engagement with your content, if you
can encourage your audience to share it directly from your site.
While on and off-site SEO
practices help you to get on Google, the ubiquitous search engine also takes
into account the freshness of your website and its content.
It makes sense; after all, Google
wants you to keep using its service, so strives to give the most relevant,
freshest results it can. Stale websites get punished by falling in the
rankings.
Even if most of your website's
pages are static and don't change, there are ways to maintain a steady stream
of new content. The most common is a regular blog, with the opportunity for
people to comment on the posts.
Depending on the nature of your
site, running a forum is also a possibility and helps with the fresh posts and
interaction that Google values so highly.
Being found through organic
search engine results is vital to your business, and that means one thing: you
have to get on Google.
By following the three key stages
of building, engaging and staying fresh, you'll give yourself the best of
chance of both getting and staying there.
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