How to gain attention and visitors to your website

Having a properly built website is just the start.

If your website is new or your online presence wasn't well established before launching a new website, you'll need to be a little patient. The best thing you can do during this time is keep adding more content to your website. You can also get the word out about your new website by sharing it on social media.

It can take up to 2 months for Google and other search engines to properly rank your website.

This is because there's no trust yet and they don't really know what you're about. But there are some things we can do to help them out. Initially, proper indexing and submitting site maps of your website to the search engines is an important start. Over time, to help steadily increase your website's page rank, there are other things that need to be done.

Two main types of Search Engine Optimization

1. On Page Search Engine Optimization:

This is where having a solid website from the start helps. The websites built by Vancouver Island Designs use advanced SEO functionality and have been setup optimally for your intended keywords and location. Furthermore, this software is setup to make it easy for you to continue with the search engine optimization plan and configuration. Most on page search engine optimization is done automatically as you create and add new content.

What the search engines are looking for:

  1. Keyword usage and density. This is the amount of times the keyword(s) that were searched for appear on your website as text and image labels.
  2. Website structure. This means ensuring that page titles, meta content and urls are used appropriately.
  3. Website Speed.  If your website is really slow, it can negatively effect your websites page rank.
  4. Popularity of your content.  The more visitors to your site and the longer they spend on the site tells Google that your content it popular.
  5. Age of your content and how often you update and add new content. Regularly add new content (text, videos and photos) to your website either in the format of a Blog, News or to the Pages.
2. Off Page Search Engine Optimization:

These are things you do outside of your website to help draw attention to it and help it's popularity. Without these things your website can only rank so high. To break the ceiling and get to the top spots you'll need to:

Have other websites link to your website. This is important but not all links from other websites are created equal. The more traffic the site that links to yours receives, the better the "link juice" is that they pass to you.

Social Media Marketing. There is no better single thing you can do to increase your websites page rank than to spread the word through social media. Create an account for your business on the most popular social networks such as Facebook and Google +. Complete your business profile, use some great images and share, share share.

Tip: Post new content to your website and share it across social media. Encourage people to read your new content, by making it meaningful and thorough.

Learn more about off page search engine optimization here: http://searchengineland.com/2014-seo-playbook-off-page-factors-178825

Remember Google and other search engines want to display links to the best and most relevant content for it's users. Make your website deliver that content!

More in depth information on how Google Search works can be found here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/70897?hl=en