When the owner of the Lamp & Shade Shop in Santa Rosa got a letter demanding $169 to keep his domain name, he was suspicious. Nathan Halverson of the Press Democrat debunks the scam in his March 1, 2009 feature on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which shows you ways to get better Google results.

The Santa Rosa Lamp & Shade Shop is a Fourth Street landmark. When their website was built in 1997 (not by us) the developer used text (not images) for the navigation and body copy, a key element in search engine optimization. Jim Theile, the owner of the shop, registered his domain name back in 1997. This is important because Google pays attention to how long you have owned the domain name and how far in the future you have paid for it. Google considers this a factor in estimating the stability of the business.

Perhaps the reason Mr. Thiele gets so many invitations to update his website is that it is more than 10 years old. Because home decor is a fashion business, advertising is one way to display your sense of style. Traditional is not the same as out-of-date.

Google is used for about 70 percent of online searches in the U.S. They frequently change their secret “algorithm,” the equation that factors many variables to determine where your website will be listed. Three tips are hightlighted in the article:

• Older domain names rank higher,
• Sites rank higher when other sites link to them, especially if the other sites also rank high,
• Sites that have lots of text with keywords will rank higher for those words.

Business owners often say they want only dramatic images on their website. They think text is distracting. They want the impact of images and little more. Five years ago, this was a good strategy, and the one Patrick Wallen used for Artistic Wine Cellars. Read this article on how seven new web pages from aNetGain.com updated his 70+ page website and jumped him to the top of the search engine results. They key is to write interesting, “search engine optmized” text that gets results.

While the Press Democrat articles mentions three ways to improve Google page rank, there are many more ways. Google likes websites that are updated frequently, rating them as “more relevant.” A business blog is one way to refresh your website often. Updating your website is important. Google checks to see if page content has been changed on long-standing websites.

There is another important way to get on the first page of the Google results; Google AdWords advertising. As shown by the Press Democrat, we can help you get started by creating the text ads that will bring in new customers to your existing website. We will work with you to develop keywords and will show your detailed results every month. Read this article about how we boosted sales 30% for Gould Stainless. Call us today to find out how we can help your business, or contact us by e-mail.