It’s all good and well to have a great website with all the information on it about your company, what you sell and where to find you, but if no one sees it, its a complete waste of time and money.

You might even be the most popular store in your city or country, but if your website doesn’t show up high on the results page when people are searching on Google, what is the point?

Too much emphasis is put on to having a great looking website instead of focussing on getting your website seen by your customers.

If I had my choice between a great looking website which nobody saw or a terrible site which got lots of looks, I would choose the terrible site every day of the week.

Getting your site ranked

Just putting your website up on the internet is nowhere near enough anymore.

There is just too much competition and too much noise to be heard. As well as the authentic business and websites online, there are also millions of fakes and marketing sites targeting your customers all the way from the other site of the world.

For your website to be worth making, you must get it seen.

People don’t automatically know who you are or the name of your business, but people know what they are looking for.

To find you, or your competition, customers will go to search engines such as Google and type in what they are searching for and Google will show them what they think are the most relevant results.

There are many search engines out there, but Google is most used, so its important to be on it.  And its one thing to show up in Google, but if you do not show up on the first page of the results you might as well forget it, you wont get seen.

Tricks of the trade

So you want to be seen on Google. So how do you do it?

Well the bad news it’s a secret. Not my secret, but Googles. Google does not want anyone knowing how it determines who shows up where on their website and more importantly who shows up at the top. There are already too many non relevant marketing companies and websites trying to game Google for top rankings.

And to add insult to injury Google changes their search algorithm periodically i think just to keep everyone on their toes. So their is no Google guarantee about getting to the top of the search page an staying there.

However, the good news is there are some very good tried and tested strategies to getting your website ranked well, that Google hasn’t changed since they started and are unlikely to in the near future.

Taking all Ego out of your website

There are many ways to getting your website ranked well on Google. There are even more ways to try and trick Google into ranking your website quickly. And although they sometimes work, they will and do eventually not only get your website de-ranked, but penalised as well.

One common problem businesses make with their website is making it all about them instead of their business.

I understand business owners are very proud of their business and all the hard work they put into it, but your customers don’t care. They just want to come in and buy their goods or services, and leave.

Making your website all about targeting customers which convert to sales or people picking up the phone is what most small businesses should focus on. Not inflating their egos.

What is SEO?

If your a business with a website you’ve probably been bombarded with email marketers from India and Asia promising to improve your website through SEO.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation which is the process of tweaking your website to make it seem more attractive to search engines like Google in the hope for better rankings.

I would be very weary about handing the reigns of my website and paying people upfront in foreign countries who approach me through email or phone for that matter. Would you give the keys to house to someone from overseas who you have never met or have no way of tracking down if something goes wrong?

The bottom line is nobody can make Google do anything they don’t want to do. But yes you can influence them through tried and proven methods.