Topping The Charts in Google

Now that our website has been up and live for a couple of months, it’s time to put things in perspective with regard to search engine optimization. Getting indexed, ranked and established in the major search engines takes time, which can be a frustrating aspect of optimizing a website. Often times, our clients have an expectation that once we optimize a website, the results will begin to show themselves in a few days. In actuality, it takes a few months at least, as the Internet is a really big place, and search engines have to try and take it all in.

We tend to check the search engines every few days for most of our sites, just to keep an eye on what is going on. Additionally, every website we build includes Google Analytics, which we review periodically to see what the trends are. Today, we decided to turn the gaze on ourselves, and spent some time seeing how our website was performing now that it has had a chance to “sink in”. Not surprisingly, we are doing very well in the search engines, showing up at the top on Google for the following searches:

Of course, these are all local searches to Newport, Oregon, which we have been specifically targeting. We also noticed that a search for nearly any of our clients results in us being the top listing as well. To be clear, we are not trying to brag about this at all. So much so that here are a few reasons that we are able to cause dramatic shifts in the search engine rankings:

1. Overall, there isn’t much competition for the terms that we are targeting. Even though there are a few other companies around that provide some of the services that we provide, there aren’t enough to make competing for the top rankings a difficult proposition.

2. Very few sites on the Oregon Coast are search engine friendly. Hopefully this does not come as a surprise to anyone. If it does, we’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news. Probably the most significant factor in our search engine performance is the way that we code our websites. Tables are for data, not for layouts…

3. Accessibility isn’t just for people anymore. We talk frequently about web accessibility with regard to search engine optimization. This is because a website that adheres to accessibility standards will also be search engine friendly. Seems strange, doesn’t it? When you think about it, the technology that allows an assistive device to interpret a web page for someone with a disability is very similar to the technology that allows a search engine robot (read “a different kind of assistive device”) to interpret and infer information about that same web page.

That being said, and with all humility in mind, we felt the need to post about the performance of our website in the search engines. After all, we tout our “proven track record of improving our clients’ performance in major search engines”, so why not tout our own performance? Besides, setting appropriate expectations is important to us, and we think that our clients should understand that although it may take a little while to propagate through the search indexes, the search engine optimization work that we do produces results!

In case you are interested in finding out how your website can perform better in the search engines, give us a call or send us an email. We also offer complete website evaluations to help you understand the challenges that stand between you and an accessible, search engine friendly web presence that makes you money!

Published by Brian Getting on Monday, January 26, 2009.
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