WEB RANKING

Many business people I have met feel they are at the mercy of their ‘web guy’. Some pay outrageous fees and are at a loss to explain what they are paying for. In this day and age, that ignorance can be the difference between success and failure. Here are a few things to know about your web presence:

GOOGLE RULES! For all the stats provided to you about how your site shows up in Explorer, Firefox, or other search engines, the Google numbers are the ones to watch. If you make Google happy, everyone else will follow suit.

Ranking does matter. Everyone has a website these days. Although no exact numbers are available, it is estimated to be in the billions worldwide. Of those, only the top twenty million or so turn up on the search engines radar.Search engine optimization, search engine marketing, pay per click ads, and other tactics are all geared to making your site visible. To test your site, visit http://www.Alexa.com. Alexa is a recognized site for SEO information. Another source is http://www.Ranking.com. This site includes your ‘trust’ gauge. I prefer Alexa for the most up to date numbers.

Keywords are crucial to the way search engines find you. The top 20% of your home page should make it very clear what it is your business does. Search engines crawl your entire site but the metadata and content of your home page should connect with the site contents. The purpose is to provide the user a better experience and to discourage spamming. If you are selling power tools, you should not turn up in a real estate search.

Meta data is embedded in the ‘head’ of the website. It is the part of the code that only search engines can see – the user does not. If you sell power tools, meta data might include power tools, radial saws, pneumatic tools, and so on.

Keywords are in the content. It is important for your marketing team to get involved with these, as well as the meta data. If you don’t have marketers, you should provide this information to your web person. Web designers may bring in terms from programs they use to generate these terms but the results often includes similar but unrelated keywords. To try this, a free tool can be found athttp://www.wordstream.com/keywords or you can open a free Google Adwordsaccount.

There are many other aspects of your web presence that are important to know. Many articles available on the web worth reading in your spare time. The only obstacle to understanding your web presence is getting over the mental block you may have to learning ‘geek speak’. Use your knowledge to better control your IT guy and to better plan the use of your marketing dollars.