No one knows exactly how many sites there are on the whole of the internet but there are millions! And thousands more are being added every day! Let's say, you make worship dance banners/flags. A search on Google showed the following results:
| Search for | Google results |
| banner | 55,000,000 |
| banners | 15,000,000 |
| banners and flags | 1,500,00 |
| creative banners and flags | 189,000 |
| creative banners and flags worship dance | 129,000 |
| canvass creative banners and flags worship dance | 4,200 |
| creative sewing designs worship-dance flags | only 87 results! |
The chances of your brand new website featuring anywhere in the list for the keyword "banner" are infinitesimally small - that means you have NO CHANCE of your site featuring anywhere near the top in a search.
OK, great. So how do you get your site to show on Google?
Firstly, don't try to compete with a keyword "banner" - as one in 55,000,000, you don't stand a chance.
Think "phrases" instead of "words". Look at the table above; as you add more words to the search, you get less results. If your page(s) contain the words "canvass creative banners and flags worship dance" in a sentence like this for example:
Our canvass banners and flags are creative in their design and are ideal for use in Worship dance"
Remember, a search engine cannot read pictures on your site. Even if they are very descriptive. Your text must say it all. Search engines index text.
Your page rank is critical. The site that ranks #1 on Google for "banner" has a very high page rank and that's why it is #1. Page rank is a VAST subject and it is not possible to cover it in any detail in a few paragraphs. If you want to know more about Page Rank, here are some handy links:
| Description | Link |
We have written a handy little application
you can use right here to check the
Google Page Rank of your site. | |
Page Rank Explained - a page by Google
that will help you better understand how
page rank works | Page Rank Explained #1
Page Rank Explained #2 |
Page Rank explained with examples - a bit
technical but well worth getting your head
around if you can. | Page Rank |
So how much page rank is good and how much is bad?
Basically, the higher your page rank is, the more the search engines will favor the text on your site when people search them for those words. (It's actually a lot more than just that but for the purposes of this example, it's close enough). Obviously, you should have as high a page rank on your site as possible with 10 being the highest you get. Generally, anything above a 3 or a 4 is considered good. A page rank above 6 is very good and 7 or 8 is exceptional.
It is important to understand that page rank is NOT linear but logarithmic. (Actually only Google knows the real formula as it is a closely guarded secret). It works something like this:
| Page Rank | Actual ranking |
0
Unranked | No one has ever heard of you.
All sites begin here |
| 1 | very low |
| 2 | very low |
| 3 | low in top 100,000,000 |
| 4 | moderate in top 10,000,000 |
| 5 | In the top 1,000,000 |
| 6 | In the top 100,000 |
| 7 | In the top 10,000 |
| 8 | In the top 1,000 |
| 9 | In the top 100 |
| 10 | One of the top 10 sites period! |
From the above, you can see that there is a vast difference between page rank 3 and 4 or between 4 and 5. As your site moves up in rank, so the competition becomes more fierce. For example, if you have a page rank of 6 you may be one of the top 100,000 sites. To get to a rank of 7, you need to be one of the top 10,000 sites. To have a page rank of 8 would mean you are one of the top 1,000 sites (in the whole world remember) - a huge difference.
