When I create websites for my clients I usually index them with the major search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo. I also add the web address to AboutUs.org which is a wiki providing information on websites. But it is more than just a “whois” look-up.
It provides a title, page description, tags and a snapshot of the home page. Now, with the added features of the “Online Visibility Audit” I can check the online visibility of my clients’ websites with regard to their keywords as soon as they are published to ensure we have done everything possible to improve page ranking.
Want to know how your website’s home page appears to both search engines and visitors?
Do an online visibility audit at www.aboutus.org
1. Simply type your website’s domain name into the search bar and click search. This will bring up some basic information about your website’s home page.
If no one’s ever done a search for your website on aboutus.org, a message may appear saying “we don’t know about this website”. Once it has automically updated, click the “Ready! Click to reload” button. Once the page has reloaded you will see information for your website such as Title, Description, Logo, related domains and tags. (You may want to come back later and edit some of the information provided but you will need to create an account.)
2. Scroll down to “Online Visibility Audit”. Here you will see a visibility summary.
3. Check the four criteria, keyword analysis, title, meta description and H1 Headings. If they are all marked as “good” your online visibility is great. However, compare the meta keywords with the detected keywords. If your detected keywords match your meta keywords then your keywords are being used appropriately.
4. If any of the four criteria shows a problem or warning, click the “more details” links to see what the problem or warnings are. In most cases your title or description is too long, you’ve included more than one H1 tag or none at all, or you’ve included too many keywords or they are not relevant.
5. Make changes to your web page to correct the errors, then click the “Refresh the Audit” button again.
These tips will increase your online visibility:
- Use keywords that accurately reflect your page content. Although not used by search engines, meta keywords or short key phrases do help indicate the keywords for the page to anyone working on your page (a new web designer or webmaster) so that they don’t delete them.
- Include a page title with accurate keywords. Search engines use the text in the title tag to determine what a web page is about. Using keywords accurately will improve your page ranking. It is also very important in driving traffic to your site. Make it descriptive and compelling in 70 characters or less.
- Include a meta description of no more than 250 characters. Google only shows the first 50-150 characters so you should strive to write a description with no more than 150 characters. It should include keywords visitors are likely to search and it should accurately reflect the content on thepage.
- Use only ONE H1 Heading that includes the keywords for the page. More than one H1 heading tag will confuse both search engines and visitors as to the important stuff on your website.
