Make your website easier to find in Google with these 11 tips

Making your website easier to find in Google. That was the subject of a workshop I gave to the gathered cleaning up coaches during a reunion. There were more workshops that day, but mine was one of the best attended with more than 80 participants!

It shows that this question lives in many people's minds: How to make your website easier to find in Google.

You have a new website and then you hope that it will attract many visitors. But it doesn't work like that.

You have to do something to make your website more findable in Google. There are several ways to attract more visitors to your website. You don't have to pay for it, there are also ways to make your website grow organically, without using ads.

I draw from my own experience, because I also applied these to my own website. I will give you 11 tips on how to double your visitors. Here we go!

TIP 1: Publish on your website

It's a very simple tip, but an important one. Make sure you regularly put something new on your website. That could be a blog, a new page or even a knowledge database. Because the more you publish on your website, the greater the chance that Google finds you. A website with 100 pages is often easier to find than one with 10 pages.

TIP 2: Choose the right keywords

Very important! You should not just write an article. You first need to look at what people are searching for. Subjects that are in demand will be ranked higher in Google's search results. I'll give you two ways to find out. First of all there is Google Trends. It's an online tool that allows you to see what keywords are being searched for and how often. In the video below I explain how it works in general. A second tool to find out what popular keywords are, is the Google keyword planner.

Another tip: don't choose words that are too general, for example "wordpress" or "blog". Many articles have already been written about those and the chance that you will be found on that keyword is small. It's better to choose 3, 4 or even 5 or 6 keywords, for example wordpress website making photography responsive. People are often looking for specific topics. The more specific you make the keywords, the more likely they are to come to your article.

An alternative to Google is the keyword tool Ubersuggest. It is a relatively new online tool to do keyword research. Ubersuggest is free and accessible to everyone. And it's also a very user-friendly keyword planner that you can easily use.

TIP 3: Optimize your pages

An important part of getting found easier in Google is optimizing your articles. In the following video, I explain how it works globally. In addition to the optimization tips in the video, there are other important criteria.rrFor example, an article with 1000+ words often has a better chance to rank high in Google than a short post. The rule is: the more added value you give the reader, the more Google appreciates it and rewards it with a higher search result.

TIP 4: use online FREE tools

To be found, it helps that you have a good, effective and fast-loading website. So you need to work on the design, a clear navigation and for example speed of the website. On the internet there are an incredible number of FREE tools that can help you with this.

Here are a few tools that can help you improve your website:

• Canva (my favorite tool, with this you can improve the design and layout of your site)
• TinyPNG (compress photos so that your website loads faster)
• Pagespeed (speed of your website can be measured with this)
• Site checkup (this tool gives a total test of how your website is doing). And there are many more tools that you can use (partly) for free.

The better your website, the more visitors it will receive, and that will not go unnoticed by Google of course. You will therefore be better findable.

TIP 5: Backlinks

Google has set criteria (there are hundreds!), by which a website comes out higher in the search results.

Two important ones are: - Creating backlinks. These are links that link from another website to your website. This is still an important indicator for Google to rank your website high in the search results. The more backlinks, the better. But: try to get backlinks only from websites that also rank high in Google. That are good, and add value. My advice is to ask other website owners if they want to place a link to your website.

However, it is important that they are good websites that has proven its value. The better the website, the more powerful your backlink will be

- Internal linking. Make a kind of spider web of your website. By creating links from one article to another, from the front page to the contact page, etc.

TIP 6: Be sure to use social media

Social media is important for getting found better. Every time you write an article, you can share it on Facebook or LinkedIn. The chance that people who come to your social media pages will click back to your website is of course increased.

If you don't feel like posting a message on social media every day, you can also automate this, for example with the Buffer tool. Here you can first create a number of posts for social media and then you can publish this on different dates with the schedule function Facebook has this function itself, but with Buffer you can also add other social media, such as Twitter and Pinterest, which do not have this automatic function.

TIP 7: Vary your content (and use genres)

9 out of 10 articles consists of text with images. It is a bit boring.

Try to write attractive and above all varied content. For example, create an interview with one of your customers. If you are not a writer, you can also send the questions and the customer could answer them.

Other genres are: - column - list (the best 10 tips for) - mood report - infographic Infographics can easily be made yourself nowadays. With Piktochart you can choose from free templates to compose your own infographic.

TIP 8: Give something away on your website

If you give something away to your visitors, they will really appreciate it. What can you give away? - e-book; - free consultation; - e-course. The latter is not so difficult anymore, since MailChimp makes the automation function available for free. It's great fun to offer your visitors or customers a fun course - know how to do that?

TIP 9: Perfect your Google Profile

If you register your own business with Google company, Google will list all kinds of information about your business in the right column next to the search results. Contact information, your opening hours, reviews about your business. It increases your visibility on the Internet and is a good way to attract attention.

TIP 10: Measure & monitor

Google has two wonderful and very extensive tools to display your website statistics and to monitor your website. Do you want extensive statistics about your website? Read more about Google Analytics Want to monitor your website?

Read more about Google Search Console With both tools, you can uncover a lot of data to improve your website and make it more efficient.

TIP 11: the GOLDEN tip!

You have to keep working on all the above tips every day Spend an hour or more on your website every week. So that your website gets better and better. The better the website, the better findable it is in Google.

Conclusion

You don't absolutely have to advertise with Adwords from Google. There are plenty of opportunities to make your website more findable in Google. Advertising is expensive, the above tips are completely free.

If you want to get higher in the search results, you have to work for it. It takes a lot of time and discipline to be busy with your website every day. But if you have a spare hour somewhere, you can fill it up by working on your website.

It is useful to make a list with points of improvement for your website. And at some point you even start to like it. Because when you see that the number of visitors is steadily increasing, that gives you a lot of satisfaction.