Search Engine Results

One of the top requests when I start a Website build is to get the customer's site to the top of the search. This process is an in-depth process that takes time and content planning. I have read about this topic, and have experience in attempting to move my customers to the top of "their" search.

Here is what I have learned through experience, and professional reading:

1- No one knows exactly what brings a business to the top of a search.
If it was as easy as typing in a few key phrases and tags, there wouldn't be such a big business in search engines. There is a reason that Google is a billion dollar business, and it's not because it's simple to get to the top of a search engine.

2- The content on your pages (text) is the best thing you can do for promotion of your business.
The key phrases and descriptions you want to add as "tags" - are more important as text within your site. More on this to follow.

3- Meta tags, and keywords, as hidden fields in a page are "old school," and really have very little, to no, impact on your search engine rankings. (See number 2 for what does help you).

4- Traffic to your site increases your result rankings. 
Your site should be your homepage, as well as everyone you know's homepage. Every customer you have should have it as their homepage, and any organization or group you are a part of - should post your Website link on their page. The more links to you the better. The more times you, customers, friends and family hit that page of yours, the more traffic, the more crawlers you will get (i.e. the more times a search engine looks over the content on your site and pushes you up). 

5- Having regularly updated content to your site will draw in traffic.
Maintaining a blog, or other area where you provide regular articles, or information updates on your site will increase the amount of customers looking at your site. The more traffic you have, the better your results. You will also have more opportunities to key-phrase on your site if you use certain phrasing within your regularly updated content. You should not just add a blog area to your site for this reason though. It only works if you regularly change the content. If your content is stagnant, people will discontinue returning to your site. If you are going to blog, you better blog, or there is no point in posting because if you have customers returning to the same post from a month ago, they will stop coming back. A tip/suggestion related to updated content and blogging: You should be posting at least 2 times per week to make this worth your while. If you cannot post new information that frequently, stick with the other methods of drawing customers to your site. Just because your site has interactive features, doesn't make it an interactive site. You and your customers must interact with it on a regular basis to make it that way.

6- The longer your Web site is up and running, the better your results will become.
It is true that some things do just take time, and search engine results are one of those things. You will not immediately be at the top of the search results for key phrases, it takes time to link those key phrases within your text to your site. You may become top of the results rather quickly by searching your name alone, but all good things do really take time - and search engine results are one of them.

If you really want to draw traffic and people to your site, think about what type of marketing will get them there. See my other article related to promoting and marketing your business to achieve Web site results. (Coming soon)

Sources:
The Official Joomla! book by Joomla!Press, Oct. 2010.