Google search engine listings can prove to be the lifeblood of many online businesses, so it is vital to make sure your new website appears in the results pages.
Here is an easy-to-follow guide to getting your brand-new website indexed on Google and other primary search engines.
If you have followed my good website design tips, then your company’s site will be ready for Google’s visit.
As of July 2021, Google had a market share of 87.85 per cent in the search engine market in the United Kingdom.
Market share of search engines held by Google… Source: The Statistics Portal
Google may well be the largest of the search engines, but they are not alone.
Bing and Yahoo are also responsible for bringing the other 13.15% of traffic to your website via their result pages.
Why do I need to get Google to visit my website?
Getting Google to index your new website allows your company site to appear in their search engine listings.
There are many factors that determine your place in the search engine results.
To give you the best chance to appear on the front pages, I always advise website owners to follow the advice straight from the horse’s mouth:
- Google’s starter guide for search engine optimization (a new window will open)
- Bing’s excellent webmaster starter guide (a new window will open)
When will I appear in the Google search engine listings?
In my experience, there is no definitive timeline for when you get indexed and listed in the results, but you could expect to see certain types of content appear in under 24 hours.
Typically, I would expect to see an inclusion within 3 to 7 days.
To help speed this process along, there are many elements that you can tweak to give Google a helping hand.
Although some SEO aspects change regularly, after nearly 15 years in this industry, I have found the key factors remain within the same guidelines.
Therefore, I always follow some simple rules that take these factors into consideration, and without specialist SEO knowledge or training, you too can complete these tasks.
How to appear in the Google search engine listings
Here are some best practices that I suggest you follow when launching a new website that will help you appear on Google:
- Always take time to craft a well-thought-out and relevant page title.
- Lead your page with an attention-grabbing H1 (only use 1 per page).
- Consider your page and break it up using headers (H2, H3, etc.).
- Write your page content naturally; do not stuff it full of keywords.
- Always ensure that you write your content for humans, not bots.
- Ensure that your website navigation is easy to follow.
- Try to publish at least 4 pages of unique content per month.
- Add relevant filenames to all your images (“my-great-image-name.png”).
- Ensure all your images have a related alt tag (alt=”something_relevant_here”).
- Add a title tag to your images and links (title: “Tell people what it is”).
- Never submit a brand new domain URL to 100’s forums or link exchanges.
- Submit a sitemap.xml to Google via your webmaster search console.
- Try to add at least one relevant external link to your page.
These principles must always be at the forefront of my mind when planning a new website project, a fresh piece of content, or when you are about to launch a promotional page.
Getting it right at the outset will make it much easier to promote and manage your website through a long-term SEO process, either in-house or with your contracted website manager.
Conclusion
To make sure you give your new site or content the best chance of appearing in the Google search engine listings, it is always advisable to follow the advice of the company that you are targeting (such as Google and Bing, as shown above).
These steps form the foundation for your search engine marketing.
There may be many more challenging aspects to tackle, but by completing the basics in good style, you are giving your site the best start it can have.
To help you as you take your first steps, why not make an action plan that contains vital consideration ideas for your new venture?
Below is a suggested list of content for your plan. You can remove or add bullet points; it is your website.
- Address your site’s short-term and long-term direction before you launch.
- Plot your navigation structure away from your screen.
- Plan a consistent page or post structure.
- Bundle your content themes appropriately.
- Consider your social marketing channels (such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc.).
- Ensure your content is well-written and easy to read.
- Make sure you submit the sitemap correctly and that it contains no errors.
With all this in place, let Google crawl away, but please do not expect Page 1 right away; that takes time and effort, and in some highly competitive niches, it may never happen.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found this article useful; if you did, please share, link, or contact me with your questions.