SEO can be very overwhelming, and confusing, if you’ve never delved into it before. At Whiteboard Marketing, we strive to simplify your marketing. Below we have laid out a couple of quick ways to boost your site’s authority on Google. These tips will help your site move up the rankings, regardless of your level of SEO experience. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Get rid of your Domain Privacy Service

What is Domain Privacy? Most domain name registrars offer a service known as Domain Privacy. This guards the name/address/personal information of the individual or organization who bought and registered the domain name. The domain name registrars really push this option as a service, sometimes for free, but often with a small, additional charge each year.

You might be saying, who doesn’t want more privacy online, right? Well, sites that are simply designed to get ad clicks typically will hide their ownership. These sites do not deliver any real value to their users. Due to this, search engines may mistake your site as spam.  This was a huge problem in 2000-2005, before Google really began cracking down on weeding out web spammers. In 2006, Google became an accredited ICANN registrar.

Google does not sell domain names, but with that official recognition, it can actually look “behind” domain privacy settings and see ownership information, no matter the privacy settings. Google uses this information to combat spammers at user level, while rewarding sites with listed registration information (tax paying entities).

Google ranks sites that are trustworthy, authoritative and relevant at the top of the page. Who would you trust? A site registered with private information that requires additional resources to find the true owner, or a site with a name and physical address matching up with the domain business registration?

Step 2: Register your site for more than a year

Small business owners often enter into one-year registration periods for their websites at first. This is very tempting, as it is easy and cheap to secure a one year registration for $10.99 and simply set your account to auto-renew before expiration. The problem with this is that Google will see the one year registration on your site and assume that you are not fully committed to the business and don’t see it as a long-term venture. Do yourself a favor and renew your site for the next ten years. This shows commitment to the business and that you have your finances in order. It is impossible to fake, which means that Google will see your business as more legitimate and will raise it in search rankings.

These are 2 effective, free and easy ways to start improving your search engine rankings. It might not get you to the number one spot, but it is a start! If you complete both suggestions and do nothing else, (spending very little time or money) you will see more Google traffic directly from these efforts for months, if not years, to come. For more SEO tips and suggestions, give us a call!