1. Choose Effective Keywords
When you create a website, it will need to be keyword optimized in several different ways. The first step in choosing those words can make the difference between heavy and sparse traffic. To get an idea of which keywords have worthwhile traffic but are not too heavily competed with, use Google's free Adwords Keyword tool. The idea is to choose words (or groups of words) that have low competition and high traffic – not an easy task but a very worthwhile one! The keywords have to match your product and service because heavy but disinterested traffic is useless.
2. Title & Description Metadata
These are small lines of HTML added to your pages that contain valuable information to search engines that are saved and referred back to by the algorithms that decide the rankings for your pages. The chosen keywords that match your site and products need to be contained in these sections of your site.
3. Produce an Accurate Site-Map
In addition to using your Metadata, the search engines also use the sitemap to navigate your site. Unless you have an accurate and readable site-map, the search engine spiders will have to find out where all your web pages are by themselves. They will do this by just following every link they find whether visible or not and you can end up with odd results, especially if you have pages you’re still working on, and don’t link to anywhere.
Note: When you build a website with Wix, a sitemap is automatically created for you!
4. Optimize Written Content
Write relevant and useful content. When you create a website, read it as a visitor might and try to assess how useful it is. Write material that helps the visitor and doesn’t just sell to them. This is the key to getting good ranking. The main keywords should be used sparingly (less than 5% overall including the metadata) and be relevant to the site or products you are selling.
5. Submit to Search Engines
It doesn’t take long to submit your details manually, and each major search engine has a section for manual submissions. You only need to submit to the top 5 major engines and a couple of niche search engines. Never use an auto-submission tool as this adversely affects the rank in Google. They see it as a “spammy” way of getting yourself to the top of the ranking by being listed on every other search site.
6. Keep Image Counts Down
To have your site “spidered” properly, Google recommends that you limit the number of images on a page to below 20, and probably around 10 is better. This is because each image may have a keyword associated with it for their search results. Even if you do not use the keyword yourself, Google wants to accurately document all images and if there are too many on a page, many will not be listed in a results page. It is better to have more pages with fewer images.
7. Back-Link Your Site
Try to get other sites that are in the same industry or a related one, to put a link on their site to point to yours. If the back-linking site contains content that is compatible with your keywords (which you should include in the anchor text), then you will gain ranking from Google because to them, and rightly so, relevance is everything. An example of a useless back-link might be on from a Swimming Pool Accessories supplier to a Used Car Sales site. A Useful one would be from a Car Valet firm, to a Used Car site. Google sees these product relations as relevant and ranks accordingly.
8. Submit to Directories
There are a number of directories where humans will look at your site and rank it according to how good they think it is. Don't let them think that you need to go and learn how to make a website; your site needs to look good, work well and offer excellent content to impress them. Google rates their results highly so prepare well for this submission type.
