Why Isn't My Site Top Of Google?

One of the most common questions asked by clients is 'Why isn't my site top of Google?' This is totally understandable but explaining rankings in search engines can be a mystery. This article attempts to discuss some general principles to improve rankings.

March 1, 2006
Updated September 19, 2024

The mystery of Google ¶

Google do not publish how they rank pages. Google do state that they look at around 100 factors on each page but it is known that the following factors are important:

Clean HTML design
Error free websites
Page load and size
Unique content
Text based links
Incoming links

In short most of these criteria smack of good content and a well built website. If you employ a professional digital agency you may find that within a month of launch you are achieving excellent rankings anyway.

Optimise your content ¶

The role of the copywriter is often underestimated on the web. Producing content with search engine friendly words threaded throughout can have excellent results. Think about how users will search for you and produce your content accordingly.

Optimise your code ¶

If your HTML isn’t valid your site is less likely to achieve good rankings. Test your code here http://validator.w3.org/. If the code fails then you will need to fix it urgently. Search engine spiders may stop crawling sites if there are errors so this is a critical issue.

Submit your site to search engines ¶

Visit the major search engine and see if your site is in their index. If it is not there is often a manual link entry form where you can submit your site. DMOZ is a human based search engine. Getting into the catalogue can be hard but your rankings will improve if you are accepted.

Pay Google to rank your link highly ¶

Google has a paid service called Adwords. In some cases this can lead to excellent results. Consider how much budget you are willing to spend and test your assumptions before buying particular keywords.

How long it will take ¶

Do not expect immediate results. It will take at least a month before you notice any improvement to your ranking. Monitoring your search engine position will be an ongoing process so be prepared to devote some time to it. Eventually you should see your site climb the rankings though and all the effort will be worth it.