If you want your website to appear high in Google search results, here are some things that may be helpful to know, that you might not be aware of:
- Google displays different results for different people. It monitors your searches over time and shows you personalized results. So if you and I both search for your website, we might each see different rankings displayed.
- Google notices how recent your information is, so frequent updates to your website are important.
- Google also ranks its search results by how many other websites link to yours. Having valuable, relevant content is key to people citing you on their websites. Publishing an email newsletter can also drive traffic to your site. Having social media sites such as Facebook and LInkedIn that link back to your website are also beneficial.
- In the past, Google based its search results on a list of keywords you would add to your website. However, in order to attract visitors, too many people abused that system, listing keywords that had nothing to do with their website. Now Google no longer relies on keywords you enter. Instead, Google analyzes the actual content of your website. Among other things, it analyzes your domain name, page headers, blog authors, image names, and even analyzes whether your content is consistent with what you say it is.
Other things that can help with Google rankings include:
- Protecting your site with an SSL certificate, which is the thing that displays an icon of a lock in your browser’s menu bar, showing that your site is secure. It’s especially important if you have a form asking users to enter personal information, such as email addresses.
- Having a sitemap on your website, which Google and other search engines will use to index your pages in their search results.
- Signing up for a free Google Search Console account, which monitors how well your website responds to searches.
Ultimately, the best way to improve your search results is to ensure your content is relevant, consistent, and informative.