How to get your website found on Google

I want to talk this lot of times when we talk with non IT organizations, churches who just have this simple question how do we get found on Google.

Someone goes down to Google and says "I am looking for hotels in London" or “some church in London” how do we get on page 1

Getting found on Google is called SEO = Search Engine Optimization

And if you are in the online business world or in online marketing or advertising you may heard this phrase or know little about it, but lot of times churches don’t know how you get found on Google. They just think it is up to Google.

You have good site and it looks really nice and you probably up right on Google and if it’s ugly website you will like on page 10, that’s not true at all because:

• Google doesn’t have eyes 
• Google is looking at you code 
• Google is weighing other factors 
• Based on algorithm

Paid Ads vs. "Organic search"

• Paid/Sponsored: Google Adwords 
• Main results/free: Organic results

Organic results: That just means nobody pays to get here on Google search page. This just means Google thinks these are the most relevant results for that whatever you typed in there.

Paid Ads: These people pay, when you click on who ever that it is going to pay quarter or 10cents or whatever it is. That’s called Google Adwords.

Basically if you have a budget and you want to pay to be seen on first page you can do that.

If you want to get found for free so let’s talk about how to do it for free

Fresh Content

• New content to your site often 
• Good stuff people can use 
• The more often the better 
• The most important thing

If you have a fresh content this is the most important things you can do, if you never login to your site, you never make changes and you have nothing doing to your site, don’t expect to ever getting on first page of Google results. So the most important thing you can do to found on Google is to have Fresh content often, good stuff people can use posted frequently

How frequently is frequently?

I tell people if you login and do something twice a month on your site you are head of most churches and if you can do something every week your doing great keep it up.

So that’s the best thing to do FRESH CONTENT. All that cost is time, time and Web person who can post it for you.

Google’s Algorithm

• Google scans your website often 
• Google checks for new stuff 
• Google uses a mathematical equation to gauge your ranking

Google’s Algorithm is like a big mathematical code and it’s kind of secret like the recipe of Coca cola so they don’t want you to know how they find it but if you do these things you will get found.

How does Google know what you got?

Google keeps records of everybody’s content for everyday and will use it to see it against your site every so often to see if you are adding stuff and what you changed. So Google knows it, its memorizing everything on web.

Clean Code

• Use ALT text 
• Correctly label media 
• Use modern web standards 
• Use META keywords/descriptions

Linking

• Links to your website 
• The more the better 
• Use free directory listings 
• Popular site links are best

Linking if you have lot of people out there with links to your site Google sees if you have site that has one link to you Google can prioritize a site that has 500 links to you as much higher so the more links the better.

Popularity

• Traffic to your site 
• The more hits the higher the rank 
• More visits = better ranking

Popularity if one persons a month visits your site Google probably not rank it high as it turns to gets 5 million hits for a month so Google can take what is popular and keep the popular.

Finally focus on good stuff that you visitors want, know what they are looking for, find whatever it is and put it on your website. This is the basics.

Focus on Content

• Don’t get bogged down 
• Focus on generating content 
• Know what your audience needs 
• Get in the habit of using the site

Blog

• Blogs are great for content 
• Blogs get found on Google 
• Easy to setup and use 
• Many free versions 
• Don’t be intimidated 
• You have the ideas already

Blog is the best thing you can do. Blog is like free things you can do online were we can put some information.

Basically blog is fancy word for website where you type couple of paragraphs every so often. And don’t get intimidated by the word. A blog is just a place where you just talk about whatever it is that you are interested in and you think people want to hear. If you are an organization blog is your chance to talk about things happening in your organization, upcoming events, and reflection on past events, preparing people for an upcoming series, basically anything.

Blog is the best way to adding your fresh content