A common question my clients always ask is, “How do I get on the first page of Google for all of my keywords?” My answer to them is one they find difficult to accept at first, until I show them the way to succeed in Google. My response is, “John, I’m going to be honest with you; it is very unlikely that you will find your website on the first page of Google for all your keywords. We might be able to land you there for a few but for all of them is just not feasible… but let me show you how you can increase your sales, without focusing to increase your ranking.”
Now, I’m definitely not saying it's not possible to increase your ranking in Google, I’m just saying that it should not be your primary focus - so hear me out on this one.
Any e-marketing person that tells you they will get you on the first page of Google for all your keywords is lying and completely manipulating you because of your lack of knowledge for how search engines operate - they are probably just interested in your money and not your success. In the past, it was possible to guarantee this because there were tricks we could do to fool the search engines and increase our ranking in Google. Google now detects these tricks and will penalize you for making any attempt to fool their engine. This could sometimes completely ban you from their index. Once you are banned, it is difficult to find your way back without some good due diligence.
In today’s e-marketing world it all comes down to the amount of content you have and the page rank of your pages in Google. So to get my clients focused and headed in the right direction, I ask them to completely change their search engine vocabulary. Instead of saying, “How do I increase my ranking in Google?” - I ask them to say, “How do I increase my website’s visibility in Google?” This small change in vocabulary is a huge change in behavior. Increasing your website’s visibility in the major search engines should be your primary focus if you want to increase sales and drive more traffic to your website. Get rid of the notion that you want your website to be on the first page of Google - at least for now. Over time you will start to see your ranking improve because by being more visible in Google, you will ultimately increase your traffic and increase your ranking at the same time - whether or not you are on the first page. It’s a process that takes time and requires effort on your part.
How do I increase my website’s visibility in Google?
A very basic way is to utilize Google’s services to further index and enhance the visibility of your content in their search engine. The following are two services offered by Google that will instantly provide positive results. I highly recommend using both for your business.
Google Base - is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content. The items you submit to Google Base will be included in the Base directory and depending on your items relevance, can be posted in such places like Google, Froogle and Google Maps. The items you submit can include labels and attributes that help describe what you’re uploading so people can easily locate your items. Attributes are words or phrases that help describe the characteristics and qualities of your items. For any given attribute you may enter multiple values separated by commas. Labels are any keywords or phrases – such as recipe, event, or product – that can be used to classify or describe your item.
Google Base is a great resource to help distribute and share information with others that you would not otherwise know how to reach. With Google Base, your information is almost instantly added and viewable by people searching for your items. Froogle has even been integrated with Google Base. Now products that need to be submitted to Froogle, are submitted through Google Base and no longer a separate program, like it was in the past.
You can submit all types of content to Google Base. Examples include the following: Articles, Events and Activities, Hotels, Jobs, People Profiles, Products, Real Estate, Reviews, Recipes, Services, Vehicles, and much more.
Google Sitemaps - Well, we have to remember that there are billions of Web pages out there and for the Google crawlers to index your site every few days would not be feasible. Because of this issue, Google has created what they call “Google Sitemaps”. It is a way to tell Google about all the pages in your site. By creating and submitting a Sitemap file, you take control of the first part of the crawling/indexing processes: which is Google’s discovery of the pages. This may be particularly helpful if your site has dynamic content, pages that aren't easily discovered by following links, or if your site is new and has few links referencing it.
Google Sitemaps helps speed up the discovery of your pages, which is an important first step in crawling and indexing your website. By submitting a Sitemap file, you could see your content being indexed in days rather than months.Google Sitemaps provides an additional view into your site (just as your home page and HTML site map do). This program does not replace Google’s normal methods of crawling the Web. Google still searches and indexes your site the same way it has done in the past, whether or not you use this program. However, it’s still one of the basic ways to increase your website’s visibility and the rate at which your content is being indexed in the Google search engine.
If you begin to utilize both Google Base and Google Sitemaps, you will be sure to increase your website’s visibility in the Google search engine. By increasing your visibility, I am confident you will increase your sales. Both of these services allow you to register to setup up an account and submit the information on your own. If you’re looking for an automated solution, Hudson Horizons can setup a process that will automatically submit your content to Google Base and submit your Sitemap to Google every three days, completely eliminating the time and effort for you to do it manually and on a frequent basis.
So forget the idea of being on the first page of Google and focus to increase your website’s visibility instead - you will instantly reap the benefits of this small change in behavior. I wish you much success!
Hudson Horizons is an e-business product, solution and marketing company specializing in creating highly sophisticated customized websites, web-based software applications and providing e-marketing services for small and mid-sized businesses.
Our vision and ultimate ambition as a company is to always strive to be "The New Light for e-Business."
By offering new, innovative and extremely competitive products and solutions to our customers, we provide better ways to run and operate their business online.
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