Here is the typical scenario: you’re a small business owner and you’ve just launched your new website to the world. Now you are wondering how long will it be before people searching the web find your site in the search engine results page (SERP)?

Since its brand new, the search engines do not know anything about it, so therefore cannot display it to anybody searching for it.

So some things need to occur before its “searchable”.  The site needs to be indexed by the search engine.  There’s no specific set time for Google to initially index your site, can vary based on several items such as:

• Popularity of the site (is there other sites linking to it? )
• Is the content crawl-able
• Site structure (code up to date?)

It can take a week to 4 weeks, possibly longer.  The good news is you can cover the first bullet by making sure your social media and other places your business information is listed online is up to date. The second and third bullet points should be taken care of by your website developer, if your site was developed by us (Northwoods Web Designs), then those bullets are taken care of.

Other items that are equally important include:

• Making sure your site loads quickly
• Your site is submitted to Google using Google Webmaster Tools
• Provide a sitemap.

Again, if your website was developed by Northwoods Web Designs, these get taken care of for you.

So how do you know when it’s indexed by Google?  Google makes that pretty easy. Simply type site:www.yourdomain.com in the Google Search Bar, and the results will show you the results.

Once your see your pages being indexed, it will start showing up in the SERP. The next step is to try to beat your online competition by ranking higher in the SERP.

What can you do to help your website place higher?  

You can help boost your website just by keeping fresh content updated on it.  You can also help your new site place higher by finding other online related directories or sites and getting your business information /domain name listed.

And don’t forget to list your information in the top directories such as Manta, Angie’s List and Yelp to name a few.  The more reputable places your website domain is listed, the better.

After that, you’re left taking it to the next level, which is obtaining SEO services.

And unless you’re a web professional and have read and fully understand the 37 page Google “starter” guide to SEO, for example, you may want to leave the SEO services to a pro.  SEO services generally include keyword analysis, meta tag management of the site and building your local listings on Google and Bing to name a few elements of work necessary.

Northwoods Web Designs offers SEO services. To learn more check out our SEO page. Or if you have questions, drop us a line here.