Search Engine Friendly Websites
Everyone wants there website to come up in position #1 on the first page of Google results. Is this a realistic expectation? Yes and no.
For the most part, depending on what the subject of your website is, you may have a tough time competing with already established websites to obtain that top ranking. Google and other search engines give preference to long established websites that are blessed with a healthy number of quality, inbound links. Also, a new website can take anywhere from a few months to a year to start showing results in the Google index. Google does this to make sure your website is a legitimate, viable resource rather than a fly by night website that is here today and gone tomorrow (their main intention being to leverage search engine results unethically).
That all sounds pretty grim for a company starting out with a brand new website. The good news is that there are some things you can do to promote and build up your website presence while waiting for Google to take notice.
First, if your website is already entering a highly competitive subject area, you may want to consider a “niche marketing” approach. This starts with careful website planning and research. Don’t worry about what your website will look like graphically at this stage. You need to build a foundation before putting up the window dressing. The number one mistake most companies make is putting graphic design ahead of website design. Graphic design is NOT website design. You need to understand the differences.
After you have researched your competition, keyword phrases and so forth, you need to think about your website architecture. The categories and sub-sections you will use within the site can also be created in a search engine friendly manner. Once this is done, you need to think about web copywriting which balances the appropriate keywords and subjects into strategically placed pages. There is also a huge difference between a “web copywriter” and a general “copywriter”. Adding a very well written page to a website is not enough. It has to contain proper keywords and phrases with the appropriate density and saturation levels.
Once all of this is done, it would be a good time to discuss graphic design and other options such as special effects, tell-a-friend features, blogs, etc. Your homework is done, you’re well prepared and ready to put on a pretty face for all to see.
All done, right? Not necessarily. This is the point at which many websites fail or do not catch on as quickly as most people would like. As mentioned above, it could take almost a year or more for your shiny, new website to start coming up in the search engine results. During this time you need to seek out links for your website on high ranking reputable websites. You may want to consider pay-per-click campaigns, print advertising with your web address and other ways to get your domain name noticed. It’s a bit like growing a garden. The more care and feeding you provide, the healthier your website will grow. Best of all, after doing much of this, Google may soon realize that your website is an authentic, reputable site after all and speed up the indexing process.
There’s a lot more to all of this than what we’ve explained here, so contact Alpine Web Media today for a free consultation.
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