6 Steps You Can Do to Make Your Website More Visible to Google

Making your website visible on Google is one of the most important factors in getting leads through your website, however ranking number one is not an easy process. With millions of sites competing to be first on Google’s search engine results page, just having a website alone in no way guarantees you a strong search engine position.

Business owners must constantly be looking to optimise their site if they wish to increase their Google rankings. However, most only have a basic idea as to what they actually should be doing to make a difference.  

To help your website stand out and achieve a higher ranking, we have compiled six actionable steps for you:

1) On-Page Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation encompasses the process of making changes on your site in order to rank higher in the search engine results pages. 

There are a large number of ways in which you can undertake on-page SEO, but none are more important than targeting relevant keywords. Determining the keyword searches that you want to target is critical to ranking higher for terms that are relevant to your business. You will want to ensure that these terms are featured throughout your site, including in your meta data and alt tags.  

Once you are comfortable with your keyword placements, you may then want to put yourself in the shoes of the user on the page. Ask yourself: is the key information easy to find? Is the content engaging, relevant, and useful to the users’ enquiries? Or even whether there is a clearly directed next step that the user should take. Creating an engaging user experience on your site is incredibly important to your site’s rankings. 

You may be wondering where you source these keywords from, or how to know what is and isn’t working for users on your site. This is where Netmatters can add significant value. Whilst there are tools such as Google Keyword Planner & Analytics available to any business, we are able to leverage powerful platforms such as SEMRush to produce comprehensive keyword lists and identify the pain points that are most effecting users’ ability and motivation to convert. 

For more information, take a look at how we utilised tools such as these to generate significant traffic and revenue gains for a leading natural pet food supplier.

2) Track & Monitor on Google Search Console

Google Search Console is still one of the best ways to discover more about the organic traffic travelling to your website. The information provided by Google Search Console gives you the ability to identify things such as what users have been searching to land on your site. This helps with identifying trends from which you can build your SEO focus around.

3) Think Mobile-First

According to Statista, as of 2021, 14.91 billion mobile phones were recorded on the planet, therefore if your website fails to meet mobile friendly expectations, you are missing out on a significant number of users.  

Not only do you want your website to be responsive on any device, be that computer, tablet or mobile, you also want to make sure the website’s load speed is fast, with the overall site easy to navigate and interact with. By regularly testing your site’s mobile performance, you can stay on top of issues that most users may be experiencing, as well as technical snags that Google might be penalising you for. Correct these issues for a more responsive site that will rise up the rankings much faster.

4) Internal Links & Backlinks

Both internal linking and back-linking are important assets to help build the visibility of your website.

Internal links are hyperlinks from one page of your website that point to another page on your website. It is important to implement internal links to aid in user navigation, guiding them to more of your content rather than leaving them to exit the site once they have got what they came for. Additionally, providing a clear internal link structure allows search engines to better crawl and index the pages on your site, something that will positively impact your search engine rankings.

Backlinks are created when a page on another website links to a page on your website. This type of link building allows your website to shout about its credibility to search engines as well as increases the website’s visibility. This will improve the authority of your site in Google’s eyes, a key factor in your search engine positioning.

5) Google My Business

Google My Business is a tool that enables you to manage and optimise your Business Profile on Google. It provides information such as your business’s address, phone number, opening hours, as well as any photos and reviews. Google My Business profiles appear between Google Ads and organic results on the search engine results page and therefore are clearly visible to potential website users.  

Having a strong business profile with good reviews and up-to-date information for users is looked upon favourably by the Google algorithm, so make sure you are updating this with all your key business information!

6) URL Structure

Finally, having a simple, logical and relevant URL is vital for search engines when it comes to understanding a website’s architecture and page content. It is also important that the URL is SEO friendly – this essentially means that the URL is keyword rich and helps with ranking well in search engines.  

Make sure you are editing your URLs to align with best practices in order to give you the best chance of realising gains on the search engine results page. 

How Can We Help?

We have glossed over some of the ways you can help your site rank better in Google, but this is by no means of comprehensive list. Considerable monitoring and maintenance is needed to keep your site competing in the search engine, with many business owners lacking the time or know-how to implement SEO. As a result, only 30% of businesses actually have an SEO strategy. 

At Netmatters, our Digital Marketing experts have a proven track record of devising effective and relevant SEO strategies which have generated significant gains for our clients – leaving them free to do what they do best.

If you are interested in maximising your business’ digital channels, contact the Netmatters offices in Norwich, Great Yarmouth or Cambridge or call on 01603 515007 to book a free consultation.