Since we are website designers there is one common question we hear over and over, “How does google work?”.  

Well the answer to that question is complicated. No one can guarantee  every detail as to how to ensure your website is seen on search engines unless you decide to pay google money (pay per click ads). The reason is because Google is driven by a very complex alogorithm, no one knows exactly what every variable is in their formula. The main factor to remember is that “quality” is the most important factor to how your website will rank.

Hmm, what is quality you ask. In the website design world and in Google world quality is very important. Think about it. How does google make their money, 90% of it is when you click on the paid links. Google has to ensure that when someone chooses to use their search engines that the user has a great experience. Google’s mission is to ensure the visitor can locate what they are looking for, most importantly they need to be able to find it quick. If not they will switch to Bing or Yahoo to find the answer to their search. Because of this fact the search engines have made several changes to their algorithm over the last year to make sure that their users only see high quality websites in the search results.

So how do you ensure that Google views your website as a quality website? Well, there is a two main factors that you must understand and take into consideration when designing a new website  or maintaining a website.

#1 The domain history

Several factors are taken into consideration when google determines whether or not you have a quality website. The easiest way for them to ensure that your website is a legit website and not just a spamming site is for them to look at the WHOIS record. The WHOIS record will show how long the domain name has been registered for and when it expires. These two factors are factors in Google’s quality score of your website. If you have owned your domain name for less than 1 year it will be challenging to make your website show up very well. One step you can take though is to purchase the domain name for at least five years, and renew it every year. Google needs to see that you plan on owning the domain name in a few years.

#2 Content

Content is King. Every good website designer and SEO company agrees that if you want to show up well in the Google rankings then you need to have great content on your site.

For example if you would like to show up for “underwater basket weaving in St. Louis Mo” then you need to have those words listed several times on a page dedicated to that type of search. Ideally this information should consist of at least 500 words and it will need to be full of keywords. The content must make sense though and needs to be well written.  The googlebot does grade the writing on a website. if it reads at an Elementary level (according to them) this will hurt you in your quest to become #1 in the search engines. The content must also be unique, if google finds duplicate content (throughout the entire internet world) then it will give credit to the original writer but it will hurt the website that had the duplicate content.

The short and sweet of it is that if you want to show up well in the search engines then you need to start writing good information about your products and services and get them on your website. Will someone read it, maybe not but Google will and that is what matters if you want to increase your ranking in the search engines. There is several tricks every great website designer knows to ensure your website can handle tons of great content without overwhelming the overall look of the site. If your designer is having issues making the website still look attractive give us a call.

There is many more factors that affect the search engines but these two are where most website owners can make the most difference to improving their website.