5 Steps to get Google to Think Highly of Your Website

If you follow these 5 steps exactly and methodically, I promise Google will think more "highly" of your website and your search rankings will improve. In this article, I don't explain why these exact 5 steps work - because it gets too technical - but trust me when I say this works well, and it is worth your time.

1. Narrow the focus of your website
Select only 3 to 5 products or services you want to sell the most (I call them "big-bang services"). Choose those services with the highest profit margin or for whatever reason would make the most of your business when presented online. Your website should focus only on those services...really, only on those 3 to 5 services and nothing else. This way, you will rank higher on Google for the things that make the most impact on your business. The other stuff just dilutes Google's view of your website.

Don't put everything your company does on your web site. Other less important products or services will just dilute your website in Google's view. If you must, your other services can be mentioned briefly on other inside web pages, but not on the homepage.

At first, this idea may seem unreasonable or unrealistic, but if you really take the time to focus and drill-down your business to the few big-bang services, you'll get a much larger impact from your website because Google can really focus on these services for you. The other stuff will follow. Do not select more than 5 big-bang services - it will be too difficult to complete the rest of these steps if you do.

2. Associate each of your big-bang services with a keyword
This can be a time-consuming, but most important step. You will need to create exactly one keyword for each of your big-bang services. A "keyword" is actually a short phrase consisting of 2-5 words. Usually, 3-4 words in your keywords are best.

Your business name should never be included in your keyword because people don't know your business name, they only know what service they are looking for on Google. Keywords should never be only one or two words, this makes them too broad. For example, I decided that my #1 big-bang service is designing new websites for businesses. So, I associated the keyword "small business web design" with this. Read on to see how I came to decide on this.

Here are some guidelines for selecting keywords, and an example:

3) Rank your keywords/services according to importance to your business
This is usually a much easier step. Simply number your new keywords by importance to your business, 1 through 5.

4) Use your #1 keyword as your domain name, if possible
If you don't already have a domain name, or if your website isn't doing well for you and you've been using your domain name for less than 2 years, go ahead and change it. You can always keep your old domain name pointed at your website, so as not to confuse existing customers, but do use your new keyword domain name as the actual web-hosted domain name.

For example, the best domain name we could have used would be SmallBusinessWebDesign.com. However, it was taken by the time I got around to considering this (a broker is trying to sell it for gozillion dollars), and our domain already had a decent Google page rank, so I decided against this step.

5) Write a paragraph about each of your big-bang services, and put them on your homepage
Each paragraph should be focused on only one of your big-bang services, and will contain the associated keyword repeatedly throughout the paragraph. We will call this a "keyword paragraph". All of your keyword paragraphs will be placed on your website homepage for Google to read, as well as people who find your website. The most important-ranked keyword paragraph will be first, followed by the others, in order of your ranking in step 3.

Because you focused in on 3 to 5 big-bang services and each have their associated keyword, there will be 3 to 5 keyword paragraphs on your website homepage. In writing a keyword paragraph, use the exact keyword repeatedly throughout the paragraph. Be sure not repeat your keyword twice in the same sentence. Make the keyword flow within well-structured sentences within your paragraph. Go ahead and get a bit wordy to fit the exact keyword in at least a few times in the paragraph.

I know this is easier said than done, but take some time and really work on this. Remember, you are writing primarily for Google to read and rank your business and secondarily for your website visitors to read. Google will decide what your website is about and how to rank it based on these paragraphs on your homepage.

Next, use the keyword as the paragraph heading. Make the paragraph heading (the keyword) big and bold on the web page above the paragraph. If possible, link the big bold keyword heading to another inside web page that further describes the big-bang service.

 In closing, I want to reiterate that many websites on which I have applied this method now come up #1 naturally on Google for the selected keywords, and it usually happens within a month or two.

Note that if you are in a highly competitive business, such as a mortgage broker or a real estate agent, this method will help you, but you absolutely must focus your keywords as narrowly as possible, down to your best city and neighborhood, maybe even down to the types of homes you service. For example: "real estate Parker Colorado Clark Farms". Your keywords may become a bit longer, but it is possible that someone will type in that exact 6-keyword phrase into Google and find you on top.

Next in this series, I'll focus on how to get people to respond to your website once they locate it through Google. I often see business owners paying high dollars for Search Engine Optimization or Search Marketing, only to fail to get results from their webstie. This is because people are not impressed after landing on the homepage, or they don't know what you want them to do next.