It’s a fair question. After all, you’ve spent a fortune on your new website and invested so much blood, sweat and tears in its launch.
How do you really know if Google is going to like it as much as you do?
This is a common trap businesses fall into when having a new website developed. It’s all too easy to get lost in the design and purpose for the site without thinking about the Google element.
Here’s how to ensure your website is as Google-friendly as possible.
Google loves unique, relevant content. This is a fact of search engine optimisation (SEO) that is unlikely to ever change.
Unfortunately, far too many people ignore this fact and instead create copy-and-pasted content that has already been used elsewhere.
Don’t; make sure you only work on the best, most unique content for your website. It should also be well-written, added regularly and made entirely relevant to your audience.
Just like unique content, imagery is something else that many businesses give short shrift when building a new website.
The key lies in sourcing (or creating) unique imagery. We’ve all seen the same stock images a thousand times, and Google knows that.
If you can, hire a photographer to take snaps of products, or use the services of a graphic designer to create unique imagery for you. The pay-off is definitely worth it.
As website mature, internal and external links may break. This is a fact of life, but it’s important you keep on top of them.
This is why it’s always worth having a browse of your website every now and again to check links. If any are broken, get them sorted.
You can use software for this too, but it’s worth speaking to an SEO agency to get assistance with this - another worthwhile investment.
Whether it’s a blog post or page of content, you need to make sure the headings you use are relevant and clear.
This means they need to include keywords but also speak directly to your target audience. If they don’t, Google won’t take notice and people visiting the page won’t feel inclined to act.
It’s also important to include the most basic meta elements. These are:
If you need some assistance with the above, just chat to your SEO experts, but bear in mind that these elements are required on every page.
If there’s one thing an SEO strategy can’t survive without, it’s inbound and outbound links.
Internal links are relatively straightforward - you simply need to add a few links to each page for keywords that move users onto relevant pages. You can do the same by linking externally to relevant third-party sources.
External inbound links are a little harder to gain, but if you work with the right SEO agency, you’ll be able to get high quality inbound links from high authority websites. And that makes a huge difference to Google rankings.
We hope we’ve given you plenty of food for thought today about Google-readiness.
The good news? You can go back and fix stuff! Therefore, if you’ve noted a few other elements above which are lacking from your website, there’s no better time than now to go back and put them right. It’s worth the effort, we promise.