Google is the top ranking search engine by miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers!). According to Hitwise, last month (August 2008), they accounted for 71% of all web searches in the US. Next up is Yahoo! in a very distant second place with 18%, and bringing in the bronze is MSN with 5%. As such, everyone and I do mean EVERYONE, wants to know how they can appear on Google. First things first. Getting recognized on Google takes time and a fair amount of effort (just getting a domain name i.e. whitedoggreenfrog.com and a hosting package is not enough). We get a LOT of phone calls saying “I typed my name in the search but I don’t show up.” There is not one specific thing that can be done to improve your ranking. SEO (Search Engine Optimization – the industry term) is a synergistic effort of a lot of different factors that when accomplished methodically, can make a huge impact on your site’s ranking, here are just a few:

1.  Google has what are called “robots” that periodically navigate and index sites. These robots will track your site at least once a month but often times a couple of times per month.

2.  The more unique your product is, the better chance you have of standing out from the rest of the competition

3.  Google is king? Well so are links! You must, I repeat, you MUST get links to your site to have a fighting chance for a decent ranking on Google. A 3rd party vouching for you and stating that you are who you say you are is huge. It’s one thing to claim that whitedoggreenfrog.com is a web hosting company but when others are also putting links to their site stating that White Dog Green Frog is a web hosting company, Google takes notice.

4.  Google assigns a measure called “Page ranking” which is also an important factor to consider when looking for links. It is preferable to acquire links from sites with higher page rank (eg: Microsoft has a page rank of 9, White Dog has a page rank of 5 – we used to be 3 and over the span of 2 years with minimal effort, we’ve reached 5). Some sites don’t have a page rank, you’re better off expending your energy on sites with higher ranks than those wit none at all.

5.  Google Australia takes into account those that are hosted locally (in Australia – eg: with our AU hosting packages) and those sites with .com.au domains and will generally rank these sites higher.

It is important to note that SEO is a major endeavor and certainly does not happen overnight (Google takes a while to trust changes to avoid spammers). Big companies that are serious about SEO pay $600 per month for a year as it takes a valiant effort to not only achieve a respectable Google ranking, but also to stay there! A vast injection of SEO services is a good start but there is a bit of systematic work that you will need to perform to stay there. If you’re interested in SEO services for your site, give us a call. For some businesses, SEO can make a real difference. There’s a lot more to it than we can cover here. We provide varying SEO services ranging from a status evaluation, call us for more info.

Comments are closed.