The 8 most frequently-asked questions about SEO

Do you want your website to rank higher in Google? Then you’ve most likely heard the term “SEO” more than once. In this post, we’ll answer the 8 most frequently-asked questions about SEO to help you ensure your website ranks higher in Google.

Question #1: What is SEO?

In case you’re not familiar with the term “SEO”, it stands for “Search Engine Optimization.”

If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know that we use it to provide you with tips for improving your website’s SEO. In other words, you may already be working hard on optimization.

Continuously and consistently optimizing your website (or webshop) for search engines is the best way to ensure a higher rank.

If you haven’t done any SEO yet, here are two posts we recommend to help you get started. In these posts we share clear and detailed steps on how to optimize your website and rank higher in search engine results:

7 Tips to Rank Higher on Google
Top of Google with your Website in 7 Steps (Beginners Guide

Question #2: How long will it take for my website to show up on Google?

When you’ve finished building your website and clicked on the magic “Publish” button in the Webador Editor, your website will go live. This also means it’s ready for indexing by search engines such as Google.

Once you publish your website, it will go live immediately. So you can visit your website by typing your website’s address (URL) into the browser.

However, this doesn’t mean your website is immediately findable when you type its name into the search bar. This is because Google needs time to index your website. Because so many webpages come online every day, this indexing usually takes a little longer than a few hours.

Indexing requires an average of 4 days and sometimes can go as long as a month. If you give Google time to index your pages, the result will be a findable website.

Question #3: How long will it take for me to rank higher in Google?

We live in a world where we want things done as quickly as possible. The same goes for outcomes – most of the time we expect immediate results. And this is especially true when we want to rank higher on Google.

As we explained earlier, ranking higher in Google is a time-consuming process. Not only does it take a while to see the fruits of your labor, you also need to put some effort. 

In other posts we’ve gone into detail about why it’s important to have a blog. Writing quality content regularly helps build more authority in Google and lead to a higher rank in search results.

Patience is key when it comes to SEO. On average, it takes 3-6 months before you start seeing the result of your work.

Question #4: My website’s rank in search results has dropped. How can this be?

It may happen that your website drops in search results. Fortunately, this isn’t something you need to worry about right away.

If your website has suddenly dropped rank, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s performing worse in Google. There’s probably nothing wrong with your website at all.

Google always tries to show the most relevant information to its users. That can be based on what your previous search was, on your search intent, and even your location. 

When you search for “ice cream parlor Rome” on Google from the Netherlands, you’ll most likely see a blog post about which ice cream parlors you really should visit in Rome.

But if you’re actually in Rome and you search for “ice cream parlor Rome,” you’ll most likely be shown several ice cream parlors in your area.

This is one way Google shows results that are most relevant to its visitors, based on a variety of factors. So if you’re not on the top spot, it might have to do something with relevance.

Question #5: How often should I use keywords to rank higher?

One common misconception is that the more often you use a keyword, the higher your website will rank in Google.

Indeed, in the early days of Google, search results were primarily based on how often a keyword appeared in a website’s text content. Websites and blogs that featured a particular keyword most often held the top spots in search results.

However, this created a major problem, and most of the time keywords weren’t being used as they should be. For example, keywords were repeated too often, which affected the text’s readability. In some cases keywords were even hidden on the page by making the text and the background the same color. This way the keywords could be seen by Google but not by the reader.

Google wanted to counter this in order to prevent an impact the quality of search results. Today, Google not only looks at how often you use a keyword, but also at other factors:

1. What’s the user’s intent?
2. How many people click on the website in search results?
3. How long do people stay on the website?

Make sure that you write blog posts focused on certain keywords. Write engaging titles that people will click on, and make sure visitors stay on your website for a longer time. This will give you a better chance of ranking higher versus flooding your content with keywords.

Question #6: My website isn’t showing up in Google search results. Is this because of Webador?

Once you’ve published your website, it goes live immediately at your chosen domain name. So when you navigate directly to your website address (domain name), you’ll see your website.

This doesn’t mean that Google has immediately indexed your website in search results. As you know, Google needs time to do this, and it cane take anywhere from a couple of days to a month.

The fact that your website or webshop is not immediately listed on Google is not because you’re using Webador. We automatically ensure all websites hosted with our service are ready for indexing. Google just needs time, and it really is that simple.

Question #7: I edited something on my site, but I don’t see the change reflected on Google. Why?

Of course, it may happen that you want to change something on your website. Luckily, the Webador Editor automatically saves all changes you make. However, it’s important to keep an eye on the notifications at the top of the Editor before moving on to another page.

When you’ve finished editing, click anywhere outside the selected element to have the changes saved automatically. 

A moment later, you’ll see a green checkmark appear. That means your edits have been saved!

Any edits you make to your website are saved automatically and go live immediately. However, there are a few things that don’t go live immediately.

For instance, when you change your logo or a page title and/or description, Google needs time to index these changes in search results. So if you don’t see these edits reflected on Google right away, that just means it’ll take a few days to update.

Question #8: I want to rank higher on Google. Where should I start?

Reading about improving your ranking in Google can be very overwhelming. With countless tips and advice… where exactly do you start?

To get you on track, we recommend the following 3 resources in the Webador Blog and Help Center:

1. Video: How to create SEO friendly pages at JouwWeb?

2. Help article: SEO settings for your pages, products and blogs

3. Blog post: The 7 Best SEO Tips

If you follow these steps, and give it time, you’ll have a fully optimized website and higher ranking as a result. And that will bring you more visitors.

Conclusion

In this post, we answered the 8 most frequently asked questions about SEO. Which question did you find most interesting and helpful? Let us know in the comments below.

Don’t have a website or webshop yet, but want to create one? Then register for free with Webador and build your own website today.