Why Is My Website Not Ranking? 4 Common Indexing Issues Websites Face
Small business owners all over the country understand the importance of ranking on the first page of major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Some have had their websites for years, but remain virtually invisible with exception to searches related to their business name or domain name. In this article we will uncover 4 common indexing issues that websites face that make it impossible to rank well online.
Frames - Frames are web pages that show multiple pages at the same time on a browser. To know whether your website is in frames or not take a look at these factors.
o Usually the home page sets the "frame set" for the layout of the web page including the header, menu, content, and footer.
o Within the frame is the main content of each page
o When and page is clicked the URL remains the same regardless of what page is clicked.
For example, example.com has five pages. These pages include:
Home Services Prices Testimonials Contact
In this example, regardless of what page of this site that you click on the URL remains to be example.com.
The biggest problem with frames is that search engines have a problem determining where a page ends and the other begins. If the home page is indexed the search engine finds it difficult to determine home much content is from the home page. Sometimes internal page are indexed with no menu systems, footers, and etc. There are ways to work around this, but for the most part, frames are difficult to rank on search engines.
Flash - Flash files have been a problem for search engines to read through for years. Recent technology has made it easier to decipher words within flash content. Google has announced that they are now able to read through some flash elements. However, that is not to say that a flash website will perform just as well as a text based website. For the best results using flash, limit your flash to your header or menu.
Pictures & Video - A small business website is not a website without pictures or videos, however many people are surprised when I tell them that search engines can't see their pictures or their videos. Some websites consists of a few pictures, a few words and a video. The problem is that unless you specifically let search engines know what the picture is, or explain what this video is about you leave the search engines in the dark. In turn, your website is not included in search results. Remember to include "Alt text" for every image on your website describing the image. For video, video services like YouTube, and Vimeo will allow you to upload your videos with a description of what the video is about.
Duplicate Content - Many websites have the same Title, Meta Description, and Keywords for every page of their website. Every page of your website should have a unique Title, Description, and Keywords that describes the content of that page. Many times, correcting this one factor alone will greatly improve your results on search engines.
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