When you create a new website, whether you do it on your own or with a designer, and understandably you start getting excited to see your website rank on Google. You want to see your new website on page 1 so that you can get more visitors to your site and more leads. Which makes sense. So when you google your website and it doesn’t show up on the first page, second page, sixth page, you start to get worried. Why isn’t my website ranking on Google? Here are a few reasons why this could be happening.
1. You didn’t research your keywords
In order to rank well, you need to know the answers to all of these questions.
- Who is your ideal client
- Know what issue is your client struggling with
- What is your client searching for in Google?
- You should know the actual words they are typing in
- Remember your clients may not know the industry jargon you are using.
- How competitive are the keywords
- Who is your online competition for those keywords?
- Are your competitor’s sites optimized?
- This will tell you how easy or hard it will be to rank for the keyword
2. On-page optimization not done
For your website to rank well on google you need to make sure that you have done all of the on-page optimizations on your website. This means you have chosen ONE keyword for each of your website pages and blog posts and have optimized those pages for that keyword. By optimizing the page, you are using that keyword for on-page optimization. If the keyword is relevant to your website (page) then it should be easy to use the keyword throughout the page.
To rank in Google you need your on-page optimization to be relevant to your keyword.
On-page optimization includes:
- Meta Title
- Meta Description
- (1) H1 Tag
- (2-3) H2 Tags
- H3 Tags as needed
- Alt Tags
5. Website content is not relevant to the keyword
Google’s algorithm is there to help the person searching. That means that Google wants the searcher to stay on their platform as long as possible, and to come back and use their platform again as opposed to other search platforms. That means that Google will try and give searchers search results that are most relevant to the keyword that they have entered. It’s your job as the website to convince the search engine that your website is in fact relevant to that keyword. How do you do that? You create relevant content to the keyword topic and you use the keyword in the content freely.
If you are a wedding photographer in Scottsdale Arizona and your website is about your services, then it should be easy to use the keyword “Scottsdale wedding photographer” within your website content. If you want to rank well for that keyword in Google you have to use that keyword 1) in that order 2) together as a keyword phrase within your content.
It’s that simple, Google will not consider your website relevant if you cannot find a way to use your keyword within your content.
4. The website is not indexed
You set up Google Analytics on your website so you can check the traffic and visitor behaviour on your site. You set up Google Search Console to see if your site is showing up in search and in what position. In Google Search Console you can also see if your website is indexed. This means that Google has crawled your site and it’s ready to be shown in search result pages when someone is looking for content relevant to your website. If your website is not crawled this is the place that you will learn why it’s not crawled. When you update your site in the future you can go back to Google Search Console and request the site to be re-crawled.
5. It takes time to rank in Google
The hardest part is waiting for Google to recognize all of your efforts and start showing your website to your ideal clients. Just know it takes time, about 3-6 months for a well-optimized website. You may start ranking sooner and that’s awesome, but it can take up to 6 months so don’t feel discouraged. Create a solid blog strategy and keep creating amazing content.
// Tip: When you search for yourself use an Incognito Window. This way you know you will get a more realistic results page.
If you have any questions about how to optimize your website please reach out with your questions.
Related blog posts:
Shop Tonic Website Templates
Tonic has my absolutely favorite templates in the game – their websites somehow combine killer strategy AND stunning, standout design. You're going to feel so confident in your new site!
