Getting your site into to Google is the easy part, getting it to appear in relevant Google searches is quite another. But let’s start with how you get your site into the world’s most popular search engine.
SEO Article #1: “How do I get my site into Google?“.
Step one: create your website before you submit it, and before you promote it in any way. Make sure you follow these important rules:
- a. Your site should include content that people would actually want to read. If people find your site engaging and informative, they will link to it. If they link to it, you stand a better chance to rank high in Google search results (more about rankings in a future article). If you only follow one piece of my advice – the above should be it. As Google itself advises: “Always focus on the users and not on search engines.” This is very true when you create content, although there are many ways to get even better exposure. In this series I will cover the things you need to know, to get you ahead of the pack.
- b. When you create your engaging content, make sure it includes a lot of text. Google loves text, and is much more likely to include your site if it is text-rich. But refer back to point ‘a’ above. Create text-rich content that is interesting, not just text for the sake of text. Content is king. Good content is the emperor.
- c. Make sure you know how to write for Google. This involves using the right keywords in your content, putting them in the right places and in the right way.
- d. Don’t spam or use any dirty tricks. There are a lot of dirty tricks that people use to try and get higher Google rankings for their websites. Sometimes they make it to the top, but more often their site will get penalised by Google or even blocked as spam. And there are legitimate ways of getting ahead of the crowd, so don’t sweat it. Do it properly and the rest will follow.
- e. Unless you absolutely know what you’re doing, avoid the following: frames, Macromedia Flash, iframes, content inserted by JavaScript and image maps. All the above may be difficult for Google to read when it checks your site. It uses an automated indexing system (known as “Googlebot”) to read your site and rate its content, and if it can’t – you’re stuffed.
So you’ve created your site, it abounds with great text content and is appealing to visitors. Now you are ready to start what is referred to as SEO or SEM.
What is SEO? SEO= Search Engine Optimisation.
What is SEM? SEM= Search Engine Marketing.
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Step two - Let Google know that your site exists:
- a. Submit a sitemap - now is the time to finally tell Google about your site. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by submitting a sitemap.
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What is a Sitemap? a sitemap is a file that tells Google about your website’s structure, what pages you have on your site and some further useful information. You can see what a Google sitemap looks like by clicking on the “sitemap” link at the bottom of this page.
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The easiest way to create a sitemap is by using this free website. You need to save this file to your hosting space using the name “sitemap.xml” (without the quotes).*
*This tutorial assumes that you know how to upload a file to your website. If not, look for instructions from your web hosting company on how to do this.
- b. Got a sitemap? Great stuff! Now go to the Google Webmasters website and sign up. If you already have a Gmail account you don’t even need to register, just use the same details. Once registered, follow the prompts to tell Google about your new site (you have to enter your site’s URL and follow the verification process, which is explained very clearly there).
- c. Now that you’re in, and you’ve proved to Google that you are the rightful owner of your site, click on the “Sitemap” link on the left-hand navigation bar, and choose to “add a sitemap”. Follow the instructions, and voila, you can sit back smugly. Google knows about your site.
NOW WHAT? If you followed all the advice in this article, and your site has good content as described above, it will be included in Google within a few days. As you’ll realise very quickly though, this is just the start of your journey. You’ve created a website and you want the world to see it, not for it to languish in search results page number 33. You want it to rank high and appear in Google searches. You want it to be visible. We’ll cover the next steps to achieve this in SEO article #2.
Come back to ThatDanny.com for the next article in this series (or subscribe to this blog to get notified when it is published).
SEO articles in this series:
How do I get my site into Google? - SEO Article #1
How to Write for Google - SEO Article #2
How do I get my site into Microsoft Live Search? - SEO Article #3
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