Get your website listed on Google

One question that I am often asked is "how can I get my website on listed on Google?". Well, there is the simple way and the hard way.

My advice for most people - start with Google Adwords. Adwords works on a pay-per-click basis. So you pay google a fee everytime someone clicks you link (ie. you only pay for the traffic that Google sends to you).

The benefit to doing this is that you get your website listed on Google within a matter of minutes. The downside is - it costs you money. But, if you monitor your site carefully - there is no reason why Adwords shouldn't work for you.

Before signing up though - you should work out how much you are willing to pay for a click through. For example, if you are an ecommerce website and you have an average order of say £30 - out of which £10 is profit.

Let's say that you also convert 10% of your traffic to customers - then if you bid £1 per click on Adwords - you will break even (10 clicks @ £1 = £10. This brings 1 customer that makes you an average profit of £10 - hence you break even).

This is quite a simplistic look at Adwords - but the principle should be looked at. But what happens when you don't know what you conversion rate is or your average order value?

Well, you have to find out. Play around with the settings and watch your budget carefully.

What happens though when you don't have an ecommerce site - for example, my lutroo website is not ecommerce, it promotes our website design services.

Do I still use adwords? Absolutely. For me - I want people to contact me after visiting my site. I don't make a direct sale on my website - but the purpose of my site is to generate customer enquiries.

So, I monitor how many click throughs I get on the website - figure out how much Google have charged me for the privaledge and then work out if I made any money from the leads that it generated.

Over time, I figure out how many clicks I need to get a lead, and then how many leads turn into paying customers. From this, I can work it back and figure out how much I am willing to pay Google.

OK - I know this is a simplistic description of Google Adwords. There is a lot more to it than this - and no doubt I will rant on about some of the more finer points of Adwords later. But with Adwords the best thing that you can do is set aside an hour or so, play around with it and then monitor the results.