This article will explore the in’s and out’s of how to make my website visible on Google search results. One recent change that Google has made is that it has expanded its first results page to include up to 60 listings. This is important because few users make the effort to go beyond page one when they search. But if searchers get a lot more listings on the first page,then it is more likely that they will keep scrolling longer and more businesses will get traffic to their sites. Even still, it is very beneficial to rank as high as possible and get your business at or near the top of local searches.
Why Is My Website Not Showing Up on Google?
A lot of business owners who have made the effort to build a website and invested some money into search engine optimization (SEO) will wonder, why is my business not showing up on Google? The long answer is complicated and probably more than a bit fuzzy. But the short answer is that optimizing a website for Google search is a highly competitive enterprise, it is ongoing, and it will require a lot of contributions from your SEO team (if you have one). The moment you reach your goal to be in the top 10 for local searches, or whatever your goal is, is the moment you become a target for your competitors to surpass you. SEO requires long term (maybe eternal) commitment and vigilance just to maintain the gains you made to reach your original goal and certainly to continue moving up the list.
Despite all of your previous efforts, if you are still asking yourself, why is my website not showing up on Google, it is most likely because you are not investing enough time, energy and money into SEO. That probably isn’t good news. But if you feel that you have invested and continue to invest robustly, then the other option is that your SEO team is not doing its job correctly.
Optimizing a website for Google Search involves a lot of understanding of how Google works and what are the most important steps to take to improve your positioning. It is complex and it is fluid; changing all the time. Google wants you to buy their advertising most of all. But secondly they want any site that they recommend to provide reliable, relevant, current, and high quality content. This is where your SEO team must stay on top of the trends and keep your website updated with the latest and best information, with back links to other high quality content. So what is the best path to optimizing a website for Google Search?
Optimizing a Website for Google Search
When making a concerted effort to discover how to make my website visible on Google Search the first thing to do is to hire an outside SEO agency to do a thorough audit of your website. They are going to find all of the strengths and weaknesses in your current website from an SEO perspective. In this way you will clearly understand the shortcomings of your website and SEO efforts.
Second, and this is something that the audit should include, make sure you get a prioritized list of how to make corrections, where and when to begin, what things are hurting your website the most, and a basic price tag to fix each item on the “laundry list”. Some of these items will be familiar to you, while others may come as a surprise. These search engines are fast moving businesses and they are constantly updating and upgrading their algorithms to meet the needs of their clients as well as their users.
Third, put together a comprehensive plan for SEO that addresses the highest ranking items on the list, that fit your budget, first. Then keep scratching off the items from the list and getting feedback from your team to see whether what is being done is actually working. Verify all of your efforts in order to maintain accountability.
The Importance of Google Search Visibility
The overall importance of Google search visibility for your business website cannot be overstated when it comes to reaching new customers, especially for ecommerce. And the list of things that will improve your visibility is lengthy. Just a few of the most important are:
- A mobile friendly website that attracts customers and keeps them interested..
- Lots of high quality content that is rich with keywords on your website.
- Fixing broken links, outdated information, old backlinks and other problems.
- Blog articles & white papers providing interesting, pertinent, reliable information for your customers.
- The inclusion of high quality backlinks to other great website content.
Because so much goes into increasing a website’s Google search visibility, many (if not most) businesses contract out their SEO services to ensure that they are covering their bases and getting weekly or monthly reports of their progress. Owners want to know the specific reasons why my business is not showing up on Google, and get them corrected.
Where To Turn When Optimizing a Website for Google Search
For most small and medium sized businesses it can be hard to afford a marketing department much less to focus on SEO alone. Fortunately there are plenty of SEO services available from reputable businesses that specialize in SEO generally or even in SEO for specific niches like healthcare centers, libraries, retirement communities, etc. Do your research to find an SEO business that has a good reputation and has worked with other companies of your size and budget with great success.
Have a good idea of what you are looking for, allow them to do a thorough search for your current website and SEO situation, as well as previous attempts. If their assessment and plan moving forward make sense to you, if you believe they can help you reach your goal for an SEO campaign in the timeline you wish and they assure you that they can, and if their plan fits within your budget, then you may have an answer to your SEO problem, why is my website not showing up on Google search?
We here at zö SEO would be happy to work through this process with you and provide you with our SEO expertise so that you can focus on growing your business while receiving all of the benefits of greater traffic to your website through Google and other search engines. You can contact us at zowebseo.com to start the process and see if we can work together to grow your business.
