Today, a client asked me a question that I sometimes don’t consider. We launched her website just the other day, but she emailed to say:
“My website isn’t showing up on Google! How do I make my site come up on the first page of Google searches? Right now when you type in the name of my shop, my site is hard to find, yet other businesses in the area come up right away. “
This question is the foundation of what SEO means.
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
In layman’s terms, that means how well your website ranks on Google, or other search engines like Bing.
Here was my response to my client:
It could take a week for your site to start performing a little better. It was just launched and it takes a couple days for Google to fully “crawl” the site and see what it’s all about and read the words around your site.
The other issue is that websites that get more “traffic” get better rankings because Google rewards sites that people visit often. So the more you can direct people to your website, the better.
You might be using the wrong website builder.
Website builders like Wix, Squarespace, Weebly and GoDaddy have a terrible reputation when it comes to your search rankings. Use a program like WordPress to get better SEO, instantly.
Another one that helps is blogging.
Your site doesn’t have a Blog page, but we could add one. Publishing a blog article once a week will go a long way toward boosting your rankings, if it’s done correctly. We also do that. Every time you publish a blog, Google sees that you are “updating” your website, and rewards you with good rankings.
That’s the basics of SEO, in a very tiny nutshell. For more information, browse our blog a little more – you’ll find tons of tips and information about how SEO works. Or, if you have questions, feel free to ask us here.
