At times at events, by email and just in casual conversations I may get asked about the changing of a website rankings in the Google search results. I often redirect these questions to an excellent document in the Google Webmaster Help Center titled “my site isn’t doing well in search” but I would like to take this opportunity to also share my thoughts on this topic on this personal blog.

Questions I tend to go like:

• My website is not ranking for my primary keyword anymore, why?
• I must have received a penalty because my website dropped in rankings, can you tell me why?
• Why is my website not ranking for keyword X while I was number one for years on this keyword?

Of course I consider it to be a positive activity to evaluate your website and see if you can be found and by which search queries you are found by your (potential) customers, however it is important to keep a few things in mind.

No Guaranteed Rankings

Yes, you read it right! There are no guaranteed rankings. Just because you were able to rank high for a certain keyword for a certain period, does not mean you are entitled to that position in the future. Just keep in mind that most major search engines will not give any website a fixed position but let their algorithms do all the hard work ;)

Internet is in Continuous Flux

Another thing to remember is that the Internet is growing every minute with possibly thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or more, new documents and media files. A large number of existing documents will also be updated or some may have been removed again. New links and other types of relationships are created or broken down between all these different new, changed and deleted documents.

As Googler Matthew Trewhella mentioned at his presentation at A4U Expo in London (October 2009), every time Google finishes a cycle of crawling the whole Internet, it may find from 10 percent to 25 percent of new content. This is huge! Let me illustrate this through an example: You are going to the cinema on a regular basis (e.g. once per week) and every time you find that the movies you attending have an additional 10 percent of new content. By the end of the year you could be sitting in the cinema for a whole day watching just one movie.

In addition, your competitors websites most probably have changed their websites since the last time you looked at them. Hopefully your website has also added new and compelling content. Even within the confines of your industry or niche, things are in constant motion. Google, like most search engines, will try to its best to accommodate all these changes by updating its algorithms, making sure new content is indexed quickly and update the rankings of every website globally based what its aims to be the best experience for its users.

So how can you check your rankings?

Luckily Google offers a great tool for webmasters that helps you understand how Google sees your website, called the Webmaster Tools. Here you can find an Top Search Queries overview for which search queries you rank best and which search queries result in the best click-through rate. In addition the Webmaster Tools also provides an overview to the most significant keywords that Google has associated with your website. If these are not reflect the subject matter of your website, you can identify this as an area for improvement.

In addition, a few articles were published in 2009 on how to use Google Analytics to check which position you were ranking for which search queries. Track SEO rankings with Google Analytics and Track SEO rankings and Sitelinks with Google Analytics II are some of the more interesting articles, although keep in mind that these may require you to have advanced knowledge of Google Analytics.

How can you improve your rankings?

The most important things for designing your website is to focus your attention on the users and making your website indexable/crawlable for search engines.

From a technical point of view you can analyse your website by -for example- making sure you don’t violate the webmaster guidelines, avoid duplicate content (e.g. use the canonical link element), structure your website using common sense, make your website fast. For more tips read the free SEO Starters Guide from Google.

From a quality point of view make sure that you focus your efforts on making your website a pleasant and useful experience for your users. Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer to optimize your website and create a better user experience.

Last but not least I would also suggest you create lots of compelling content and often publish new interesting compelling content so that your website can become an authority in your market/niche and there is a good reason for visitors to return to your website.

If after this whole story you still have questions about your rankings, I suggest you come to the Google Webmaster Help Forums where many helpful and friendly webmasters are willing to help answer your questions. Or you can choose to hire a professional SEO advisor, in which case I recommend you to read Google’s article on Search Engine Optimization.

The short answer is: “to help you visitors and search engine crawlers better understand the content of your website”. This may sound like common sense, however I do find myself often surprised how many websites forget this small yet so important part of website optimization.

Last week I was a speaker on the Google Site Clinic at the A4U Expo conference in London and during this session I highlighted a few times that the websites submitted for review were not using basic structuring elements to its full advantage. Based on the conversations I had at this conference, I wanted to elaborate on why I believe structuring your website well matters.

Imagine the following: You are in university and asked by your professor to write a 60-pages paper/report on a certain subject (note: it doesn’t really matter what the subject is). You will proceed with writing down all the chapters, paragraphs and resources. Now do you structure this? Of course you do! You will use a cover, a table of content, an index, etc. You do this to make the paper/report more readable for the reader, which is in this case your professor and your rewards may be a higher grade.

So coming back to websites, why you should do the same for your website? Keeping in mind that the reader will be, among others, visitors and search engine crawlers and that your rewards may be increased sales, trust as a authority and possibly even improved rankings in search engines.

Let me try to illustrate what I mean by comparing the structure of a paper with the desired structure of a website.

So when you are design a website, you should really keep the structuring of your website in mind. Not just because this will help search engines better understand the structure of your website (and you may rank better because of this), but improved structuring can lead to increased visitor satisfaction and sales/conversions. I recommend you to read the “SEO Starters Guide” by Google and “Don’t make me think” by Steve Krug and take some time to apply these best practices to your website.

I love to hear what other resources would you recommend. Please do share your comments below.

Update [Dec 2nd, 2009]

If you can read Dutch, you may also be interested in the following article: Kopjes gebruiken voor zoekmachine optimalisatie.

This article will discuss how small businesses, with no major online presence, can still take advantage of the possibilities that web has to offer and how to increase their clientèle and/or branding without too much effort.

First I will give you some background information: Recently I went to my favorite barbershop in my hometown Groningen and the owner asked me, knowing I was involved in IT somehow, my thoughts on her website. She has a rather static website, which is acting as a business card for her shop. It contains some basic information (e.g. phone number, contact form, the faces of her team, the location, etc). Overall it is a nice small website. However, these types of websites, in my humble opinion, works mostly with clients that already know the shop and will not necessarily bring in a lot of search engine traffic and with that new visitors. Her target audience is very localized and her shop is in a prominent spot in Groningen, so at the moment she does not need search engine traffic. However she wanted to improve the website (once in a while it is always good to improve websites) and wondered how she could get more out of it. So for her and others I am wrote down some thoughts that potentially will help this small business. Note that these thoughts are far from covering every angle and that even though I will use this barbershop as an example, most of these tips can be applied to any small business or freelancers website.

Creating a website

You can hire a webmaster to create a website for you (find one in your neighborhood or online)) or you can use one of many free online content management platforms to make your own website. A good platform (that for example this website is running on) is WordPress.

Once you have chosen a webmaster or platform, you need to think about the structure of your website. Keep in mind that the structure needs to make sense to your visitors. You can test this by asking around (ask some friends and family and even some customers), you may be surprised by some of the preferences people have. I will give you here a basic structure that generally works for most small business websites:

• Homepage (link here to everything popular and/or important).
• Articles section (here you will need to publish regularly unique and compelling content, I will discuss this below).
• About page (think our the history of your business, give your local visitors a chance to connect to your business).
• Gallery page (feel free to add some examples of your haircutting/products, photos from the shop, etc).
• Meet the staff-section (optional, let them write a introduction page and publish this under this section).
• Contact page (contact form, phone numbers, address, directions from known points in the neighborhood, a map for anyone who has difficulty following directions.

This is just an example. You can add anything you like, but try to keep it simple.

Having a frequently updated website is important!

By updating your website often, your website may perform better in search engines and you give your visitors a good reason to come back to your website. So the big question is with what do you update the website? Well, that should not be too hard. I am sure that you, just like most other barbers, are reading articles and news sources related to your work. In addition you are probably also communicating with other barbers and people in your sector. I am also sure that, especially after a while, have some unique knowledge about your work. For example, tips and best practices on how to color your own hair at home or your advice on what is the best way to cut keep your hear healthy. You posses unique knowledge that a lot of people would like to read more on. I would also not forget to refer to your services in each article (when appropriate) in case your readers would like professional assistance ;). So why not share this knowledge (freely) with the rest of the world or the people that speak your language?  Sharing this knowledge will allow you to build a reputation with your clients and increase the trust they have in you. It will help your branding and as a result you may get a number of new clients. This means you will become an authority in this field. Celebrities are created that way!

How to find the time to create content for my website?

Like most entrepreneurs you will probably not have a lot of time to spend on researching and writing content for your website. Don’t worry! You do not need to spend so much time on this. Of course, if you have the time go ahead and use it for this but I will assume that you do not. Consider this: You are already reading articles and other literature, why not take a few notes while you read them? This will help you to prioritize, come up with topics and references for articles and allow you to quickly write these articles (less time spend on research). Also consider writing down questions you get from your current customers. Often these questions are on the mind more people and provide great ideas for article topics. With a little bit of effort, approximately 30 minutes a day maximum, you can write enough unique content for your website.

Communication is key!

Now that you have this frequently updated website with regularly added unique content, you will need keep an eye on comments that your visitors may leave. Also email correspondence could increase slightly. Be prepared for that! Check your email and website (for comments on your articles) for 5 minutes every few hours (e.g. whenever you are not helping a client or have a staff member do it).Make sure you answer all emails within a working day (even if you do not have an answer yet, communicate that to keep the communication line to the potential customer open).

It may take a few months to get noticed and before people start commenting on your articles. This is normal, but keep in mind that you need to continue producing content before and after you get noticed. Of course you can speed up how quick you get noticed with some extra marketing (which I am discussing below).

When you start getting comments on your articles it is important that you respond to them (preferably within a working day) and that you are honest, positive and constructive to the commenter. Doing this will be highly appreciated and will increase your branding and reputation (remember client = king!).

How to build online reputation fast

A few factors will most definitely help you get noticed quicker. Some are technical and some will require you to put more time into your communication efforts.

First, the technical bit:

• Make sure your website is good indexable for search engines. If you are unsure what this means, check out Google’s SEO Starters Guidehire a professional.
• Make sure you promote your website in local search, e.g. add you business to Google Maps and check out if you can sponsor local events or clubs and promote your website here.
• Make sure you provide a notification system by email on your website that allows visitors to be notified (opt-in) when you post new content. Visitors will return to your website and promote your content through word of mouth. If you use a content management system like WordPress (otherwise ask your webmaster) you could use free tools like Feedburner to help you with this.
• Lastly, you can also use online advertising to promote your business to groups of people targeted to what they look for online by using tools like Google Adwords. Do note that you may want to get some professional advice or spend a few hours reading up the literature before using these type of tools. The main reason why I am noting this is because the cost can quickly run out of hand if you do not know what you are doing.

Secondly, your communication efforts:

• Be active in social media, e.g. use Twitter, Facebook or be active in forums related to your sector and promote yourself as an expert. Don’t overdo it by spamming every social media you come across, instead focus on one and put all your efforts into that for a while. If you are unsure about the new hypes of social media, try out old-fashioned forums first. The forums may be old-fashioned but they will teach you a lot on how to communicate and you can already start building your brand here.
• Be sure to promote your website and knowledge shared on your website to your offline environment. For example, give your customers business cards telling them to go to your website and tell them why! Also try to hang up a poster in your front window promoting popular topics you are discussing on your website and display the address of your website on your car, etc.

Identifying success

Finally you can use a number of free online tools like Google Analytics and the Google Webmaster Tools to identify your most popular topics, the increase of your visitors and the number or returning visitors. I would most definitely keep an eye out for the popular topics and which queries result in visitors. You can use these to go more into depth on these topics and really write unique and compelling content. Just try to set some realistic goals and try to achieve them. If your goals turn out to be too easy or difficult, adjust them accordingly but keep on trying to achieve your goals. Obtaining those goals will be your measurement for success.

I hope you found this article useful and do leave me your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks!