So, you have a brand spanking new website. Yay!

The only problem is nobody knows that it’s there, and it’s not showing up on google! Damn… So, nobody is learning about your awesome services or buying your incredible products.

I read once that a website is like fine wine, it just keeps getting better with age. Why is that? The older the website is, the more opportunity Google has had to crawl through it, so the more likely the website is to show up for certain keywords and search terms. This is otherwise known as search engine optimisation or SEO for short. Add to that the industry “best practices” penchant for constantly changing as Google changes their algorithm, and the need for good SEO becomes abundantly clear.

Here’s a couple of not so hard steps that might just help your website show up in search results:

Backlinks / External Links

A “back-link” or “external link” is created when a an external website links to your website {links back to you}.

Why do you need back-links? Google is a search engine that follows links. For Google to know about your site, it must find it by following a link from another site. When Google crawls the other website, it will discover your website and index it.

The more links pointing to a web page determines how important that page is in the eyes of Google. Some links are more powerful than others though, for example a back-link from a website that has loads of incoming links themselves are generally more important than links from small websites with only a few incoming links.

Keyword Research

Have you thought about what keywords and search terms you would like your website to show up for in Google?

Do a quick google search from the perspective of your target audience. For example, if I offer dog grooming, my audience could be searching for “dog grooming”, “pet care”, “pet grooming” etc. write down as many search terms as you can think of. Another important thing to take note of, is Google’s drop down list of suggested search terms, these are terms that are used often. So, if you type in “Dog Grooming” and the list suggests “dog grooming near me” “dog grooming Perth” (if you’re in Perth) etc, then write these down as well.

The next step is to take advantage of Google’s own tools, such as “Keyword Planner” {Found Here}.

You may need to register an account, otherwise just log straight in, and select “Get Search Volume Data and Trends”, and in the text box enter all your newly found search terms and keywords. Select your target area and hit “Get Search Results”.

This tool will give you the average monthly searches and the level of competition for your search terms. So, you can decide which keywords to aim for on your website. Add those keywords to your body copy, page titles and meta description to help improve your ranking and SEO.

Write Relevant Content

Fill your website with complete, informative and relevant information. You’ve already done your keyword research, so you know a few words that need to be included in the text. But you don’t just want to create text that is keyword heavy, Google will notice what you’ve done.

You want to create an informative, helpful website full of information that either solves your customer’s problems, or lets them know how you can solve their problems.

Write about your services and your products but ALSO write about the issues your target customer might have that your services / product might just be the answer to. Find out what topics are important to your customer and then write about it.

This gives your website content that is relevant to the topics you want your website to start ranking for.

Link Building

Now we know that Google likes to follow links, and discovers websites through the links that come in to your website {back-links}, so it’s important to get as many valid back links as possible. The more links the more popular your website is, remind anyone of high school?

Reach out to another site owner, preferably of topically related websites, and ask them to write about your new website. If Google follows multiple links to your website it will crawl it more often. This can be crucial for your website SEO and will eventually help your rankings. BUT REMEMBER, buying links is a no-go! You could end up blacklisted, and nobody wants that.

Remember, at the end of the day, you need to let your website age, like fine wine. Give Google the opportunity to crawl through a few times and start improving your “popularity”.