Improving Your Ranking on Google After Completing SEO Setup Checklist

To check if your site is indexed by search engines, search "site:" followed by your site's domain with no spaces. For example: site:wix.com

If any of your domain's pages are listed in the search results, those pages have been indexed. If there are no results for your domain, your website has not been indexed yet. Check that you have allowed search engines to crawl your site. 

Quality content is essential to ranking higher in Google. If you are not ranking on Google for your keywords, you may want to reconsider your list of target keywords. When choosing keywords, ask yourself, “What would one of my customers type into Google when looking for a business like mine?”

Next, take a look at your site and check that you have used your keywords as much as possible, while always making sure that your content sounds natural. Use your keywords in your domain, in your headlines, within the text on each page, as alt text in images etc. 

Long-tail keywords often have lower competition and can attract more relevant visitors. Update your content to target more specific phrases that match what potential customers are likely to search for. For example: Instead of 'magicians', try 'children's party magicians in [city name]'.

Google tends to favor sites that are well-written and frequently updated content. Regularly publishing blog posts, ones that your target audience will enjoy or find informative, is a very effective way of doing so.

It also helps to get links (backlinks) to your site from relevant or reputable sites. This improves your online reputation and credibility, increasing your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Learn more about getting backlinks for your site.

If you're wondering why you can see some of your site's pages in Google, while you may not see other pages (e.g. your homepage), this is because search engines crawl each individual page. Each page, therefore, is treated as separate and individual and each page is crawled for its keywords.

SEO is a long term strategy and changes rarely happen within days or even weeks. Your site won’t show up in Google results for your keywords overnight and the more competitive your market, the tougher it will be to rank high. Once you’ve chosen great keywords to target, you want to put fresh content on your website as often as possible. Consider adding new pages, images or blog articles that incorporate your keywords.

For additional tips and ideas to optimize your site, check our SEO Learning Hub.

Ranking depends on how competitive your market is, how much authority your site has built over time, and how helpful your content is for the keywords people search. It often takes time to compete with older, more established websites that already have stronger content and more backlinks.

Upgrading your site gives you the ability to accept payments, access additional features and remove ads, but Google does not rank sites based on billing status. Google evaluates the content on your pages and other SEO signals when deciding where to place your site in search results.

For new websites, it can take up to 6 months of consistent SEO work to build a stronger ranking position. In more competitive markets, it may take longer.