Get your website to sort to the top of the Google search engine

By Jerald Brown
Dimen, Inc;
Your Friendly Neighborhood Webmaster

There are over a billion websites on the Internet, and everyone wants his website to appear on the first page of a Google search list. A simple search of a general word, such as "hypnotist" or "mortgage," will display millions or tens of millions of entries. Yet every hypnotherapist and every mortgage broker wants his website to appear at the top of the list.

There are ways to get your website to appear on the first page of a Google listing, but first let me dispell erronious thinking about it.

Myth: A good webmaster can get your website listed at the top of a Google listing.
Truth: Google is an independent company headquartered in Pasadena, California. Webmasters do not own that company and webmasters cannot direct that company to put your website at the top of their list. Google has its own standards; the more we comply to those standards, the higher in the list your website will appear.

Get Your Website On Google's Directory First

First, let me tell you how to get your name on the Google search engine in the first place. If you have a brand new website and want to get it listed immediately, you or your webmaster may go to the Google website and send them your website name. Eventually it will get put on the list. Or you have option two. You may do absolutely nothing; Google will find you and put your website on their directory.

You see, Google's business – as all leading search engines – is to get your website in their directory. Therefore they have programs that daily scour the Internet finding new websites and updates to old websites. All you have to do is wait and they will find you. That is what I did for my own websites and it worked fine.

Avoid problems! Sometimes it takes longer for a website to be registered. Here is how you can avoid that. Make sure your first page gives an adequate description of your business. The Google program that finds new websites reads the first page and registers its contents. If your first page is only a picture, tough luck. Google reads text, not pictures. If your first page is a real cute flash program, tough luck. You just outfoxed yourself. By being attractive and giving eye appeal, you lose your position and listing on Google. Your first page should contain a clear description of your business with all the key words you want included.

What about meta tags? Meta tags are hidden coding on your webpage designed to give search engines key words about your website. At one time they were used, but even in the best of times with the best of search engines, only the first 250 characters were read. I've seen meta tag keywords expanded to thousands of words. The search engine would read the first 250 characters and go with that. Today, meta tags are not needed. Search engines read your index page and adds keywords from the text on your first page. Every key word is added.

A good webmaster, in my opinion, will make sure your first page, the home page, has all the keywords and information a search engine needs. And don't forget, meta tags are obsolete.

Which Search Engine Should You Use?

Although Google is by far the most popular search engine, there are about four hundred in all, and some are closing the gap between them and Google. If you want to be represented on Search Engines, your should consider also putting your website name on those like Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, and so on.

All good search engines will eventually find you on their own, but why wait for a few to find you? You can pay a small fee and go to a company that will submit your website name with keywords to all four hundred search engines. Just go ahead and pay the money and get the job done. However, don't forget, even if you submit your name to the search engine companies yourself, that's not enough. You must have a good home page anyway.

What About Other Pages In Your Website? Will the Search Engine find those, too?

Search Engines will find your other pages, too. What they do is find first your home page, index it, and later follow links from it to other pages. Eventually all your pages will be listed.

How Long Is "Eventually"?

Your page should be listed with search engines within six weeks. If it's not, then you probably have a problem with your home page giving adequate information about your site. Review that.

If you look for your own website and seach ten pages of a 1,000-page list but don't find it, don't assume your website is not listed at all. You still have 990 pages to go. You could be near the bottom.

Get Your Website Listed Near the Top of a Search List

How do you get your website listed near the top? There are two ways. You can earn it or you can pay for it.

Earning Your Position

A good webmaster cannot put your website near the top of a search engine. That's your job. For example, a good builder can make a nice house, but it's up to you to make it a home. A preacher can marry you, but it's up to you to make a good marriage. A car manufacturer can give you a nice car, but it's up to you to do maintenance, add oil, add gas, keep it clean and make it work for you. A webmaster can make you a nice website, but it's up to you to get it near the top of the Google list. It's your responsibility, not his or hers.

So how do you do it? How do you get your website near the top of a Google search list? You need to follow all these points. If you do not follow one of them, your place on the list will drop dramatically

• Put a complete description of your business, including all your key words, on the home page.
  Make it attractive, of course, but the search engine seeks information.
  
  
• Get many people to link to your page.
  You can do that by making your website beneficial to their business. People will link to you if that information brings clients to their site to get the information from you.
  You can also trade links. You link to them if they link to you.
  You can register your site in business directories, such as www.at-la.com.
  The more links to your site, the better off you are. Your webmaster can help you with this, but it's up to you to make sure it's done.
  
  
• Get many people to visit your page.
  How do you do that?
  1. Advertise.
     Put your website on your business card, on your store front, in the yellow pages, on your flyers, on most importantly on the tip of your tongue. Keep talking about your website and inviting people to visit it. Not one time, but continually.
     
  2. Make it useful.
     Put on your website information people need and come to you to get. Plumbers will tell what people should do in case of a plumbing emergency. Hypnotherapists explain the benefits and safety of hypnosis – to dispell harmful myths. Photographers will give tips on what make great photography and offer discounts with coupons.
     
     
• Update your website frequently. A website that hasn't been updated recently is a website that is no longer used. The owner doesn't pay attention to it any more. Always add new information, remove obsolete material, and refine what you have.
  
  

Pay For Your Position

Google a very nice advertising package that you may want to consider. You set up an account with Google, giving your business name, website, keywords and so on. Whenever somebody searches on those keywords, your website name will appear on the right hand side of the first page. So far, this is all free to you. Then, whenever somebody clicks onto your website from that page, you will be charged a few cents. I'm not sure how much you are charged, but I think it's about four cents. So, for everbody who actually visits your website from that Google listing, you will pay a few cents.

You may cut off advertising at a certain point. Let's say $40 per month is your limit. When those cents add up to $40, advertising stops and your name doesn't appear on the list any more until next month. That means, if your $40 limit is reached on the 26th day, you get no more advertising for the next four or five days, and then it starts again.

Don't forget, that advertising is for Google only, not for all four hundred search engines out there.

And that, my Friends, is what I think I know about getting your website name at the top of a Google search list.