If you've ever searched your site on Google and then sat in wonder trying to figure out what page it was on, take heart. Many site owners are wondering the same thing. Search results ping back hundreds of sites, but when you find yours showing up on page five - or worse - page fifty, you know it's time to take action. Studies have shown that 93% of web users don't look past the first page of results. So what's a website owner to do? Well, there are a few things that are out of your control: algorithms for one and competing sites for another. But you can make sure your site is armed for effective ranking and high searchability. Here's how.
- Make sure you have an analytics system and know how to use it: first and foremost you want to make sure that you have access to your back end statistics. Why? Because they're important and because you want to know how much traffic your site is getting and where it's coming from. Also, learn how to read these reports. I would recommend considering Google analytics.It's the easiest to learn, manage and install. You'll want to monitor this data a few times a month (especially if you're knee-deep in book promotion) to see where your traffic is coming from and whether the work you are doing to send people to your site is paying off in unique visitors.
A final tip for helping Google find your site is through incoming links. Google loves these and it will really help your site bump up in searches. You'll want high-traffic, high-quality incoming links, so that means links from sites relevant to your own in topic and sites that are coming up high in searches. What's the best way to get links? Well, you could offer them a review copy of your book (when they review it they will likely post a link to your site) or if the site has a blog (most high-traffic sites will) then you can post comments on their blog (see my article on Social Networking on Blogs for an explanation of how this works).
These tips might seem simple, but they work. If you've been perplexed about your site ranking and tempted to call Google and say "Hey, where's my site?" try this. It's effective and will not just get you ranking in the short-term, but it will help you build your site's credibility for the long-term.