New website launched - Why isnt my website on Google?

Well, Google isn't a magician and contrary to popular belief doesn't "own" the Internet.

However it is definitely the lead search engine and to get your website onto page 1 there are a few tips and tricks that will help this happen, although nothing can be guaranteed, so if you are promised "Page 1 of Google" - start running !!

Google has what is called a "spider" that crawls the web looking for pages that will interest its readers. Think of the spider as a Producer, the better the content that is shown to the reader the happier the reader is and that is why Google is head and shoulders above any other search engine -

Because it is looking for great content - that's all you need to have to be ranked well!

So page content is key and hopefully you will have already done this with your new Gingerweb website. Next we need to make the site "Google friendly", so when the spider crawls around your site it sees everything you want it to see and is impressed!

It is all about the Meta Tags.

Let us start with the Meta Title tag.

If you put into a Google search box your website address and precede it with site: you will see all of you Meta tags as Google sees them and as importantly in the same way that your customers will see them when they are scanning down a search result page looking for the website they are after - we all do it right?

so Google search your site like this - site:https://www.gingerweb.co.uk

Depending on whether your website is brand new or has just been rebuilt on the same name you will either get no results or the results of all your previous pages. When you adjust these tags they won't show until Google has crawled the site again so it might take a few days to show all your hard work.

Rules:

1. The title tag should not be longer than 60 characters otherwise it will just end in the middle of a wor...
2. Each page on your site must have a unique title tag - so every page must be different.
3. Include the important keywords relevant to that page
4. It also should make sense as you want customers to click the title to visit your page.

To add these to your pages in your Joomla installation login through the admin area and navigate to the Menus button on the top tab and dropdown to the Menu with the icon of a house on it, this will most likely be the one you need. Open this one and you should be presented with the Menu titles from your site menu. Click on the one you want to change and then click the "Page Display" tab where you will see the "Browser Page Title" box.

Put your Meta Title in here.

This is a brief video of the above process.

 Next is the Meta Description.

The length of the Meta Description seems to vary from website to website and there is no fixed length that it must not exceed. However in most cases the two lines limit is good to stick with and then after a few days you can see what Google has allowed you and perhaps add a few words if there is space.

Like the Meta Title you want to avoid making it too long so that the description just ends in the middle of a sentence with the trailing .....

So to add the Meta Description go to the same Menu link you were in for the Title but click the Tab to the right of Page Display which is titles "Metadata" In this dropdown add your description to the top box with "Meta Description" next to it and Save.

It is ok to ignore the Meta Keywords box because Google doesnt use these anymore.

This is a brief video of this process.

If you have any problems with this process please drop me a line for clarification.