Having trouble getting your website to rank well in Google? Don’t worry. You’re not the only one. Getting a website to show up on the first page of Google for a specific keyword-rich search query is not an easy task, and the process can be very frustrating, especially in highly competitive markets. However, that doesn’t mean you should just throw in the towel and give up. There are many free references and tools that can help you achieve higher rankings in Google.
Where there’s guidelines, there’s a way.
Google has Webmaster Guidelines available to the public that provide website owners, webmasters, and SEO‘s with the best practices that will assist Google in finding, crawling, and indexing their site. Google offers these guidelines for a reason, and every website owner and webmaster who are looking to increase their website’s visibility in Google’s search results should have a thorough understanding of them and how they’re applied.
Below, I’ve listed a few important things to keep in mind when creating a “Google-friendly website”, and hope that you take advantage of this information.
Give consumers the information they’re searching for
Be sure to provide high-quality content on your website’s pages, especially your website’s homepage. Google states that this is the most important thing to do when creating a “Google-friendly website”. Think about what words or phrases your potential customers would type in a search query to find your pages, and encompass those words throughout your site. If your company offers St. Louis SEO Services, then be sure to widely include the phrase St. Louis SEO services on your site’s pages.
Make sure other sites link to yours
Links will help Google’s crawlers find your website, and will give your site higher rankings in search results. Google’s search engine algorithm uses intelligent text-matching strategies to show pages that are important and relevant to each individual search query. Google sees a link from website A to website B as a vote by website A for website B. Therefore, if Google deems website A as “important” and “relevant” to website B, then website B will certainly want a link from website A.
In general, the more “quality” backlinks (inbound links to a website) a website has, the better of it will be in search results. However, only natural links are useful for the indexing and ranking of your site, which you can read more about in Google’s Quality Guidelines here.
Make your site easily accessible
When creating your website, be sure to implement an internal linking strategy. Internal links are links on one page of your site that link to another page on your site. Internal linking is very important for both users and search engine crawlers. You’ll want to make sure every page on your site is accessible from at least one static text link. If you’re site is built on WordPress, consider using the SEO Smart Links plugin to assist you with this process.
