8 Google Basics for Your New Business Website

Google is the most powerful money making tool that you could focus your business website on mastering. Some think of it as a good thing that Google became the single most important source for driving search engine traffic – it’s much easier to focus your business website on one set of criteria for ranking well in the search engines than it is to try to focus on four or five different search engines.

On the other hand – if you’re not being found in Google you’re not enjoying the huge volume of free traffic they can send your site. Many thousands of businesses (millions?) exist (and thrive) off solely what Google sends them through their search engine results.

Here are some Google basics that can help you. All of these are free!

1. Go to Dmoz.org and register your business there. Dmoz is Google’s directory and though it’s next to impossible to get listed because they rarely (ever?) update it, it’s still worth your time in the off-chance that you actually get listed. A listing in Dmoz is quite a vote of trust from Google itself and will help you climb in the search results.

2. Go to Google Local Business center and register your business with them. They’ll verify it. Add as much information in the forms they offer as you can.

3. Register your business website with Google.com/webmastertools/. This will provide information about what google is doing in regards to your site, how many pages it has indexed of your business site, the top keywords Google is sending your business traffic for, and many more bits of useful information.

4. Register your business website at Google.com/analytics. This is Google’s statistics program. It has some great features – even linking up with your Adsense or Adwords program (other Google services you should also explore). Google analytics is more accurate than general stats programs and gives more information than most. It is NOT realtime – there is a substantial delay of more than 24 hours at times, but still well worth it… being free and all.

5. On your site – the Title, <H1>, and Alt=, Title=, tags are all very important. It’s becoming important to not only use specific keywords with your site but also use different words to describe the same thing.

6. Content is King. Having 60 pages of content about your niche is much better than 10 pages. Go way beyond what you think is the minimum. Google wants to index the BEST sites in the top 10, not those that offer what everyone else is offering. Be different – be comprehensive. Be anything but what everyone else is doing. Have some depth.

7. Inbound links are still very important. Websites, forums, comments, and even Twitter links are starting to be counted by Google. Social media is taking off – and you’d better be riding that wave too.

If you just keep in mind that Google is trying to find the best sites, the most helpful sites, the most comprehensive sites, the most user-friendly sites to index in the top 10 results for every search engine query you’ll have a better undertstanding what you need to do to get there.

8. Trust. Quality sites Google can trust is what it wants. Whatever could increase your trust level – will help. Adding a copyright to the bottom of your business site makes it more respectable. Adding your address, phone, email, fax… etc. Everything helps. Having a privacy statement, disclaimer, about us, shipping policy pages all help. That’s what quality sites have – right?

We’ll have some elearning courses here to help you learn all about Google and what you need to do to optimize your business website for high search engine ranking. Sign up for our free newsletter to get notified of some free elearning coursestoo!