The 5 Things Google wants to See From Your Website

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Is your website quietly sabotaging your Google rankings?

You could be doing everything right—marketing, content, offers—but if your site is missing just a few key things, Google’s quietly pushing you to the bottom of search results. And the worst part? You probably won’t even know it... until your traffic dries up.

After auditing websites for 20+ years and helping online business owners get found by the right people, I’ve seen these same overlooked mistakes hold websites back again and again.

If even one of these five red flags shows up on your site, it might be time to take action before your visibility—and your leads—disappear.

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Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:00):
You could be doing everything right marketing
content offers but your site ismissing just a few key things.
Google's quietly pushing youdown to the bottom of the search
engine results and, the worstpart, you probably don't even
know it until your traffic driesup.
After auditing and reviewingwebsites for over 20 years and
helping online business ownersget found by the right people,

(00:24):
I've seen the same overlookedmistakes hold websites back
again and again.
If one of these five red flagsshow up on your site, it might
be time to take action beforeyour visibility and your leads
disappear.
So let's dive in.
Welcome to the e-commerce madeeasy podcast.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop

(00:46):
and a nine month old.
My main goal to help others.
Now, with over 20 years in thee-commerce building industry and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I've seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
online business.
Whether you're a seasonede-commerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of

(01:09):
e-commerce together.
Welcome back to the show.
Today, we're talking about thefive core things that Google
wants to see on your site, andthese are the staple things.
These are the things that areever constant and not really
changing.
So these are really thefoundations of great search
engine optimization, and we wantto make sure that we are doing

(01:29):
really well with search engineoptimization, because if Google
doesn't trust your website, noone's going to find it, and that
is key.
We want Google and the othermajor search engines to find
your website so that you can getleads while you're sleeping,
while you're being with yourfamily and all the other things
you want to be doing in yourlife too, because 70 to 90% of
online experiences start with asearch engine, but if your site

(01:53):
isn't giving Google and theother search engines what it
wants, you're invisible, you'renot found.
So the good news, though, is itis fixable and you don't need
to be an SEO expert.
So let's dive in to those topcore five items we need to be
doing on our website to makesure it has a strong foundation
for search engine results.
So the first one is actuallymore simple than you might think

(02:17):
, but also can be very nuancedand a little bit hard to do, and
that's clear purpose andrelevance.
So we want to make sure thatit's very clear to Google who
you help out and what you do,and this is going to be very
easy for it and it's going to bevery fast for it to figure that
out.
So when we talk about you knowcoming up with our ideal

(02:38):
customer and the words they use,this is where this kind of
comes into play and it's whyit's so important is Google
needs to know who you'respeaking to.
Who do you want to help?
Are you a shoe store and youhelp runners specifically with
their feet problems?
Do you?
Is that who you serve?

(02:59):
Or are you a shoe store thatserves the general public with
comfy shoes that they love towalk around in?
Specifically, who do you serveand maybe different sections of
your website serve differentpeople too.
So focus those sections onthose people that you generally
going to have an overarchingalso target audience as well.
We want to make sure that yourhomepage headline, your page

(03:22):
titles and your section headingsall work together to support
who you help and what you do.
So it's like writing an Englishpaper to your teacher when
you're in school.
We start off with a title.
You know this is our main ideafor the paper and then your
title supports the main idea.
Each of your headings majorheadings support that title and

(03:45):
the subheadings support theheadings above them.
So it's all supportive and allrelated.
We wanted to.
We want to do that as well withour websites.
So if you're a course creator,helping moms start Etsy shops,
for example say that in plainEnglish.
Don't be like fancy with it.
You just simply say I help momstart Etsy shops.

(04:06):
Be simple.
Sometimes we try to make thistoo hard, make it like super.
You know like we're thinking.
You know we're thinking thirdto fifth grade level, at most
seventh grade level.
When we want to use copy andwords on our website.
The simpler the better, theeasier for the user.
That's fast.
You know you're looking at yourwebsite fast to skim and read

(04:28):
it.
They don't really have to use adifferent level of their brain
to read and comprehend it.
That's why we want to have itin the elementary grade level,
somewhere around fifth grade.
Some say third, some say up toseventh.
Like I said, seventh isprobably the max I would want to
go.
We want to make it easy forthem to skim and read and
understand.
As well as Google and the majorsearch engines is really, really

(04:49):
important.
A lot of people I see willovercomplicate this, make things
sound fancy when we just needto spell it out and then we talk
about this several times on thepodcast is fast loading speeds.
Speed and greatly impact searchengine optimization and your
conversions with your potentialclients.
Google prioritize mobile firstand they want it to be fast.

(05:11):
We need fast loading sites,especially on mobile, but it
improves the user experience, soit improves the people who are
using Google.
They don't want to click onwebsite links that within Google
searches that are really slow.
That degrades not only thatwebsite's reputation but also
Google.
So Google's always presentingat the top the websites that are

(05:32):
a lot faster.
So this is very important.
Tools like PageSpeed Insights,which is by Google.
Gtmetrix is also great.
I actually like to use thosetwo Plus.
I like to use Webmaster SpeedTools as well the great test.
They're just great free testingtools and can really get you a
good idea as to what is slowingdown your website.

(05:54):
So make sure that you'recompressing your images and you
are using plugins that cacheyour webpage and you are using
plugins that cache your webpageand you remove unnecessarily
plugins, unnecessary plugins orscripts, especially ones you no
longer use.
One thing I find a lot onwebsites is they have website
bloat because they were like, oh, let me try this add on or let
me try this feature, and thenthey end up not liking the

(06:15):
feature, but they don't removethat plugin or that feature and
it's bogging down their site.
So you can get pretty easilybloated there when you're doing
that.
And then what caching pluginsmeans if you're not familiar
with what that is is it'sbasically a snapshot.
It's basically think of it likelittle photos.
It's like photos of yourwebsite versus a moving video.

(06:37):
So they take little snapshotsof what your website was at a
specific point in time and thendisplay that to the consumer
versus going off into the backend of the website and finding
the latest information for it sothat information gets refreshed
regularly.
Hopefully that makes sense.
But basically a cache is astatic copy of your website at a

(06:58):
certain point in time and again, like I said, it refreshes
later.
And then point number three ismobile friendliness.
Over 60% of users are browsingon mobile and Google and the
major search engines indexmobile first.
They do that first, so they'relooking at your mobile website
first before they even determinehow good your desktop is.

(07:21):
So even if you have a greatoptimized desktop version of
your website, that's going to beovershadowed by whether your
mobile is good or not first.
So if your site doesn't work onphones, doesn't work on tablets
or is hard to navigate, it's amajor red flag and this is
something I highly encourage yougetting to fixing right away if

(07:42):
you do see problems with that.
So test your website on yourmobile phone right now.
Can you easily read, click andbuy?
Can you schedule that call?
If you don't have the othertypes of mobile phones, let's
say you have Android and youdon't have Apple.
Browsers like Firefox andChrome have a built-in tool
where you can test it on theother device as well.

(08:05):
Or use a friend this would be agreat conversation with a
business friend or one of yourbest friends.
Say, hey, can we look at mywebsite on your phone?
It's a great, greatconversation and just
interaction in general and mightget talking about what you do
and who you serve, and then theymight think of who they can
refer to you.
So it's a win-win situation.
It's, you know, greatsocialization, which we all need

(08:26):
a bit more, I feel like withsocial media and true, real
socialization and is a great wayto test your site.
And then we want to make sure wehave helpful, original content.
Google doesn't want just anycontent.
Think about they are servingtheir customers, which are the
people searching on theirwebsite.
They want content that'shelpful to real people who are

(08:48):
doing the searching.
That boosts confidence in thatsearch engine, same for Bing and
the other major search engines.
It boosts confidence when theydeliver to you what you're
expecting and great value too.
So we wanna think about blogposts that answer questions,
service pages that are veryclear and helpful and explain

(09:08):
what you do, and product pagesthat don't sound AI generated,
that sound like they're reallytalking to a human being and
helping them see the benefitsmore over than the features on
that website.
So if you haven't startedblogging we've talked about this
a few times on our podcast Ihighly encourage you.
If that's something you want todo, start with a once a month

(09:30):
routine for that one.
I feel like once a month is theminimum and not overwhelming
for those starting out, and then, if you can work it up to every
other week, that's even better.
When you have new, freshcontent like that for blog posts
, that helps Google notice youas well, because your website's
not stagnant.
You have new content, you areattending to it.

(09:50):
These are signals to it thatyou think your website's
important.
And if you don't think thatblogging is appropriate to you,
what piece of content could youcreate regularly?
Is it adding new products?
Say, you sell physical goodsthat you ship out?
You know, adding new productsor refreshing your product pages
regularly is also great Ifyou're just a service provider

(10:10):
or coach and you don't have awhole lot of dynamic content.
Doing that refresh of yourwebsite and adjusting your pages
also indicates to Google thatyou're paying attention to your
website, and it really helps.
So If you want to go intoblogging, though, pick one
question your audience asks youand write a helpful blog post
about that this week.
That's my challenge to you.

(10:31):
If you want to go on to theblogging bandwagon, if you don't
feel like blogging is whereyou're at right now or something
you want to do, pick one pieceof content on your website, your
service page or specificproduct page, and review it and
revamp it and then put this onyour calendar regularly so that
you are looking like you'repaying more attention to your

(10:52):
website, because it's so easy tojust set it and forget it.
Trust me, I absolutely know.
And then the last one is a bitmore of a no-brainer, and
everybody should be doing this.
Now, we do still run into thissometimes, though, is we want to
make sure that your websiteuses HTTPS.
It has to have a securitycertificate behind it.

(11:12):
Now Google will penalize youheavily if you don't have an
HTTPS or SSL certificate behindit.
This is that little lock that'sup in your search bar, and if
you click in your search bar orin your URL bar, I should say
excuse me, you want to make sureit says HTTPS in the front.
They hide this right now.

(11:32):
On the modern browsers.
You can't see it unless youactually click up there.
So click up there and make sureit says that.
And if your site is showing notsecure, google is very, very,
very likely dinging yourrankings for this.
So make sure that whomever isyour service provider for your
website, whether it's a host orsoftware as a service make sure

(11:54):
that it is there.
If it's software as a service,I can pretty much guarantee you
do have HTTPS, so that shouldn'tbe a problem for you.
So let's wrap up what we talkedabout today on how.
What are the basics?
How do we make sure Google ishappy with us?
So, first off, we want to havea clear purpose and message and
then support that with yourheadings and your subheadings

(12:15):
and your paragraphs.
We want to make sure that wehave a fast website.
We want to make sure it is faston mobile and fast on desktop,
and then we want to make surethat it works great on mobile,
on phones, on tablets, before weeven really dig into the
desktop.
The mobile and the tablets arereally, really important.
And then we want to haveoriginal, helpful content.

(12:38):
What is your audience askingyou frequently?
What can you talk about thatwill draw them in to be curious
about you and your products oryour services?
And then, finally, we want tohave a website that is secure.
We want to make sure it has anSSL certificate and is
displaying the HTTPS up in theURL bar.

(12:58):
These aren't fancy marketingtricks.
They are the core foundation ofbeing found online and the core
foundation of search engineoptimization.
A lot of people try toovercomplicate SEO anymore, and
it's really not that complicatedwhen you are looking at the
basics of it Now.
There are a lot of other layersyou can add onto it.
But if you don't have thisright, adding those other layers

(13:21):
on won't do you a whole lot ofadvantage until you get this
right.
So I encourage you to listenback through this episode again.
If you need to take notes andpick something to work on, pick
one of these five things todouble check.
The last one is probably theeasiest one to check off your
box I'll give you a hint thereand then start going through one

(13:41):
through four and making surethat you're doing a good job on
each of those.
If your website isn't hittingthese mark check, don't panic.
Just start with one changetoday.
So whether it's adding astronger headline or compressing
your images, pick one thingjust to work on and then come
back to it.
Make sure you schedule it in.
We don't do the things we don'tschedule, so make sure you're
scheduling it in.

(14:02):
And if you want us to take aquick peek at your website,
you're always welcome to emailus at sales at bcsengineeringcom
.
Just ask for me and my friendlystaff will get the ticket over
to me.
And if this help episode helpsyou out, would you do me a favor
?
Please leave a rating or reviewon your favorite podcast app,

(14:23):
or share with your friend.
That really helps spread theword for our podcast and helps
us help others just like you,and we will see you next week.