I’ve launched my new website, but I’m not showing in Google

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So you’ve launched your new website and you are nowhere to be found in Google.
Perhaps even a search for your brand name doesn’t yield any first page results. So what do you do?

For every search on Google, there is a predefined set of results that Google returns to the user. Google decides what to include based on a number of factors including these 2:

  • keyword relevance
  • domain authority

Keyword relevance

Keyword relevance consists of ensuring that your website appears relevant to Google in the context of the search the user is doing. For example if you are trying to rank for HR software, you will need to mention “HR software” on your web pages and in the meta tags that you use on those pages.

But what if a number of other sites are also competing for keyword relevance?

Google’s first page only has 10 results on it and people barely look past the first 3. So how do you rank above the others?

This is where domain authority comes in, and there are some basics you should have in place before building out your keyword relevance efforts.

Domain authority (DA)

So all other things being equal, how does Google decide the order of rankings? Every website has a domain authority score of between 1 and 100. Website like BBC and Google itself have an extremely high domain authority. A new site will have authority close to zero. You can check your domain authority here.

Authority is achieved by having other websites linking to yours. You can think of these as ‘votes of authority’. A website with a high domain linking to you will pass over some of that authority, signalling to Google that you must have some importance and therefore a higher level of authority.

Some websites try to manipulate the algorithm by paying for links. This is a risky strategy as Google looks for this behaviour and severely penalises websites caught buying links.

How to increase domain authority

So how do you get these links? Here are a couple of key must have building blocks for a new website:

Directory Submissions
This is probably the place to start as it’s a relatively straightforward but time consuming process. Submitting your website to good quality directories will signal to Google that your website has some serious intent and will assist you with overall visibility. If you are a member of any governing bodies or trade associations, links from them will greatly assist.

Social profiles
If you intend to have some social presence (recommended, but you will need to plan resources to run it), you should create profiles for your business on key social platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Yes this still holds true if you are a B2B business.

Guest posts
Once you have completed the above 2, guest blogs are a very powerful way to win valuable links from high DA websites. If you operate in a certain niche, you should find high DA publishers in your space and offer to write an article for them.

Conclusion

Follow the above steps and you are building some solid SEO foundations. Make sure you have Google Search Console (free) installed on your website. It provides a crucial SEO dashboard so you can track progress (for example your ranking changes for a particular key phrase over time), and spot opportunities. It also has a function which enables you to submit your site to Google and check that it’s been indexed.

Don’t forget that Google’s algorithm works slowly and it could take weeks or even months to see ranking changes and they often go down before they go up!

If you want to start trying to deliver quality leads or enquiries for a particular niche area, get in contact with a specialist (like us) to setup a B2B lead generation strategy for you.

Faisal Mian - Entrepreneur - Freelancer

Written by Jonathan Hedger

Jonathan Hedger is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MCIM/FCIM) with over 15 years experience in B2B marketing & ecommerce having held senior positions for a number of market leading brands as well as VC backed startups.

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