The web is growing at a rapid rate. In fact www.worldwidewebsize.com
claims that today on Tuesday 1 October 2013 when this blog was written, the
indexed web contains at least
4.32 billion pages. Pretty amazing, really, when you think that you can
enter a search request and within the blink of an eye you are presented with
the most relevant web pages.
Therefore, you have to let Google know that you’re there.
This process is called getting
indexed. So what does this involve?
Google uses software which is typically referred to as a
spider, crawler or bot. These spiders crawl through your website and store a
list of keywords found. Google is then able to build an internal index. It’s
important to note that Google wants to index and rank everything, therefore it
ranks web pages not websites.
With this in mind you need to ensure that you have quality content throughout your
website, not just your home page. You need to make each page count. As spiders
are crawling through your website, they are also looking for page titles, meta
tags, headings and internal links. (On-page search engine optimisation is a
topic we covered in an earlier blog.)
Like everything else in life, your page rank must be earned.
Take the time to invest in producing quality, relevant content. Another important factor to consider is that
as Google is constantly looking for new
content, it’s worth keeping your website up to date. Add new pages
often, and if you have a blog or social media pages, keep these up to date too
and make sure that they link back to your website as well.
Having a website built is an essential item on your business
checklist but, once it’s built, don’t forget about it. Think of your website as
a living thing. Do you have some exciting news, such as an award or industry
recognition? Are you selling a new product, or have perhaps stopped stocking
another? Does your business have a newsletter, and are you updating it on your
site regularly?
Your business doesn’t stop growing and neither should your
website. Don’t make the mistake of creating a website and then forgetting about
it.
Written by +Denise Angus
