As a small business owner, you know that your website is one of your most valuable assets. It’s your online storefront and potential customer’s first impressions of your business. You may also know that it’s essential to make sure your website is indexed by search engines so that potential customers can find you. But what does that mean, and how do you go about indexing your site? In this blog post, we’ll answer those questions and more. We’ll explain what website indexing is and how it works, as well as walk you through the steps to index your own site. So, read on to learn more!
Why is website indexing important for your online presence?
Websites that are indexed by search engines are more likely to receive organic traffic from users who are searching for relevant keywords. This organic traffic can result in higher ROI since it is typically more targeted and leads to more conversions than other forms of marketing. In addition, website indexing is important for building brand authority and generating backlinks. When your website is indexed by a search engine, it helps to create trust and credibility with users. Backlinks from high-authority websites can also help to improve your website’s ranking in search results. As a result, indexing your website can have a significant impact on your online presence. In short, indexing is vital for any website that wants to succeed online.
How does indexing work?
When you publish your website, you’re essentially making it available for anyone in the world to access. However, unless people know your website exists, they’re not going to be able to find it. This is where search engines come in. Search engines are designed to help people find relevant information on the internet, and they do this by indexing websites. The crawling process is when search engine bots visit websites and read their content. Then they take the data and add it to an index, which is effectively a giant database of websites. When someone uses a search engine to look for something, the search engine will check its index to see if there are any websites that match the person’s query. If there are, the search engine will rank the websites in order of relevancy and display them to the user. You can submit your website to a search engine, which helps them to find your site and add it to their index. Once your website is indexed, people will be able to find it when they use a search engine. Indexing is an essential part of how search engines work, as it allows them to provide relevant results to users who are looking for information on the internet.
How long does search indexing take?
New websites and pages on a website can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks to index, but most content gets picked up by search engines within 1 week. There are sometimes technical issues that could result in things taking longer than expected; this is rare though as it usually depends upon how fast Google’s algorithms pick out new information about your site!
How can you check if your website is indexed?
One way to check if your website is indexed by google is to do a google search for your website’s URL, for example, “site:yourdomain.com”. If your site appears in the results, then it is indexed. If it does not appear, then it is not indexed.There are a few ways to speed up the process if your site is not indexed. One way is to submit your website’s URL to google through their search console. This will notify Google’s search spiders to crawl your site. Another way is to create and submit a sitemap. This is a file that tells google what pages on your site are available for crawling.If neither of these methods works, it is possible that your site has been penalized by google and will not be indexed no matter what you do. In this case, the best course of action is to consult with a professional SEO specialist. They will be able to help you figure out what the problem is and how to fix it.Looking at your google analytics data can also be helpful in determining whether or not your site is being indexed. If you see that google is not crawling any of your pages, then this indicates that there may be an issue that needs to be addressed.
What challenges can search engines have when indexing?
Search engine crawlers use advanced artificial intelligence with a human-centric approach to index websites. As advanced and intelligent as they are, they still face some challenges. Some scenarios that might prevent indexing are:
1. Audio and Video Files
If you have audio files on your website, the search engine has a hard time understanding the content within the audio which is why you also publish a transcript separately to the audio/video. A transcript can be read and the context of your audio or video can be understood by search engines.
2. Too many 301 Redirects
Newer websites need to be careful how many redirects are put in place, especially due to a redesign. Too many redirects can cause your site to get ‘sandboxed’
3. Too many 404 errors
Search engines want to supply the best websites first in searches. They don’t want to list websites that have too many broken links, images or pages that no longer exist.
4. Repetitive title tags
This is an issue that can be easily fixed but is heavily penalised when websites are indexed. Make sure every page on your website has a unique title tag.
5. Using Flash or iFrames
Flash and iFrames are hard for search engines to decode, much like audio and video. With the help of Alternative text descriptions and proper titles for media files, you can help search engines understand their content.
Conclusion
Website indexation is a complex process that requires significant time, effort and resources from webmasters all over the world. The way it works seems simple enough at first glance but if you look deeper there are actually of intricate details involved in making sure your site gets found by search engines when people do searches on them online!Hopefully, you found this article helpful and that you get your website indexed so that people can find it when they do a search!
Troubleshooting
Key Technologies can help you with all of your website indexing and SEO needs. Contact us today to have a free chat with one of our specialists.
Are you planning to move to a new office and are unsure where to start? We can help you prepare with this short moving checklist and with our IT& phone system &web services, you will be quickly moved in and carrying out business as usual.
Moving to a new office can be an exciting and stressful time. Some new offices are not equipped with enough data and electricity points or can only get a certain NBN type so it is important to consult your IT and Phone company as early as possible to ensure a smooth move.
Below are some things to consider as you plan and schedule the various details of your move.
Key Tech can setup and test your new office network
Check if your new office network is VoIP ready.
When you move to a new location, one of the first things that will need attention is getting connectivity set up and verified. Your IT contractor should take care of this for you by making sure all labels on sockets match what’s been installed in order before testing each cable from end to end as well as ensuring there are ports available for desk phones to operate properly along with printers or other IP devices such intercoms which may also be needed during setup time. Ensure that core switching and routing hardware are properly configured.
If your business is very phone-centric or your staff make a lot of video calls, a typical business bandwidth should easily support your VoIP phone system. If you’d like to be sure, our team can testyour current VoIP network load.
Keep the phone lines active during the move.
Cloud phone systems have been around for a long time and are proven to be convenient and provide a great user experience. They allow businesses to have multiple extensions on any IP-connected device of choice. You will be able to take calls and not worry about being unreachable. The advantages of cloud phone systems continue when we look into the functions of a virtual receptionist!
If you have an on-premises phone system, however, you won’t be able to take calls while your phone system is packed up and in transit on the truck. You must notify your phone company or SIP provider to keep your number active and ask them to temporarily forward your number to a mobile number or a voicemail box until your phone system is set up in the new location.
Packing and moving your IT equipment.
Even if there’s not much gear to move, it can save time and headaches if you hire professionals to pack, ship, install and configure your networked equipment, including your phone system. If moves are local, they are typically scheduled during a weekend to minimise business disruption.
If your servers contain sensitive data that is subject to security regulations, you may need to hire special services to transport and secure the servers during the move.
Test voice quality and extensions at the new location.
You should back up any data stored on your system before moving, such as voicemail messages or recordings. After the move is complete have all employees test their phones immediately when reconnected to make sure there are no issues with connectivity and functionality in the new location.
It is important to include instructions in an email so they know to test things like inbound/outbound calling, leaving voicemails, and internal extensions and conference bridges. By testing early, problems can be dealt with sooner rather than later.
When you’re moving, it’s important to consider the different ways your employees can stay connected to one another and your customers. If you have a cloud phone system, you could introduce your team to a softphone application. They will be able to stay online during the move and be able to receive calls to their extensions while away from their desks. Softphone applications can also function as a backup phone if your office is ever snowed in, out of power, flooded or otherwise unreachable.
Update announcements, greetings, and contact information
If you replace any of your hardware, there are several ways to properly dispose of the old hardware. If your PBX phone system is in good condition, you can call any local and national vendors and they will purchase your used telecom equipment. You can also donate it to a local non-profit organisation or charity. There are also IT recycling services that can take your outdated or retired computers, servers and equipment.
Please note: It is good to practise, particularly in a regulated industry such as healthcare and finance, to ensure that any old company and customer data is irretrievable on hard drives and devices before disposing or donating the items.
The move of your business can be stressful, but it’s also an opportunity to get rid of unnecessary equipment and outsource tasks that are better performed by cloud service providers. By consulting and planning your move with your telecom service, your move will go smoothly with no disruption to your supplier or customer communications and no unpleasant surprises.
Relocating Office Checklist
Consult Key Technologies, Brisbane's trusted company for IT support and business communications.
Ensure you are using the latest version of your Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers because the latest update contains an emergency patch for a high-severity bug that is being exploited by hackers.
Google released a patch to fix the bug a few days ago and now Microsoft has done the same. Tracked as CVE-2022-2294, the bug is present in the Chromium browser engine, so both Chrome and Edge are affected.
Further details about the bug are being restricted for the moment to avoid supplying cyber attackers with ammunition for further attacks while users have time to patch their endpoints.
Known zero-day
“Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,” Google said. “We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third-party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven’t yet fixed.”
Microsoft has decided to stay tight-lipped as well. “This update contains a fix for CVE-2022-2294, which has been reported by the Chromium team as having an exploit in the wild,” the company said in the patch log.
The Edge version that has patched the bug is 103.0.1264.48. Users are urged to check and update the browser immediately.
How to Check your Edge Version
To check (and update) the version of Microsoft Edge browser you are using, click on the ellipses menu (three dots) in the top right and navigate to Help and Feedback > About Microsoft Edge.
You will see the latest version under the About heading. If you need to update, you will be notified and you can click a button to begin the update.
If you need to update, be sure to restart the browser immediately after updating.
How to Check your Google Chrome Version
To check (and update) the version of Google Chrome browser you are using, click on the ellipses menu (three dots) in the top right and navigate to Help > About Google Chrome.
You will see the latest version under the About Chrome heading. If you need to update, you will be notified and you can click a button to begin the update.
If you need to update, be sure to restart the browser immediately after updating.
Reach out if you need any assistance or have any enquiries.
Any business can benefit from a virtual receptionist. No matter your industry, business size or budget, a Virtual Receptionist can reduce the costs of hiring call centre staff, and save your staff time by answering and directing your calls, taking messages and even scheduling appointments!
Low cost for a small business
Low Cost, 24/7 365-day Service
A Virtual Receptionist can deliver an excellent and proficient customer service experience that offers 24/7, 365-day service. A Virtual Receptionist costs a fraction of the cost to hire and train a traditional in-house receptionist.
No Call will go unanswered
Virtual Receptionists can be customised to suit specific company and industry requirements and can also speak different languages.
The most advanced Virtual Receptionist solutions can request customer information and simulate an actual conversation.
Virtual Receptionists can execute some business administrative tasks such as taking messages and scheduling meetings at any hour of the day.
Savvy Customer Support
Customers will not have to wait to receive assistance with common topics because Virtual Receptionists can perform a range of basic customer service tasks and also offer more evolved customer support through other channels, such as live chat. They can chat with potential and returning customers on social media channels and on the website. They can also direct tickets to the right customer agent, saving time and reducing staff workloads.
Lead Generation
A Virtual Receptionist with marketing skills can help in your lead-generating campaigns. Whenever they talk to new leads, they can add their details to your CRM so you can walk them through the steps to converting them into customers.
How to Get a Virtual Receptionist
To get started with your very own Virtual Receptionist, an established and trustworthy phone system provider can help you set up a reliable virtual receptionist. The provider will likely have subscription plans to choose from that will vary in price depending on your call volume and size of business.
The provider might ask you a few questions to understand your business model to help them understand your business’ call flow.
Businesses are struggling at the moment due to the aftermath of the pandemic, staff and supply shortages and the cost of living increasing. Here at KeyTech, we want to relieve some of your business burdens with our technical expertise and reward you for introducing us to your associates.
By referring us to your business connections, we can unite and support each other in the local business community during these challenging times.
Terms and Conditions
*Referring business must be a current client of KeyTech and on a current contract with KeyTech
*Referred businesses will receive a 20% discount off their first month’s invoice
*20% discount will be applied to the referring business’ monthly invoice on the following month after their referral has converted to a sale
*There are no limits to how many referrals you make, each successful conversion adds 20% off. For example, if you refer 2 contacts and both take on services for 12 months, you receive 40% off your next month’s invoice and each of your referrals receives 20% off their first month.
If you’re on the hunt for unique and special products and services in Brisbane, look no further! Here you will discover there are numerous amazing local businesses located in Brisbane. We love to support local Brisbane businesses and we want to inspire you with their amazing work. Keep scrolling and don’t miss the special businesses below.
Caring for our furry friends
With caring hearts and capable hands, Taringa Vet Surgery treats cats and dogs. The family-owned business was established in 1987 and is thriving today because of the elevated standard of care the staff gives to each and every pet.
CamPak delivers successful outcomes on a range of unique projects. Some of their commercial projects include the Domestic Terminal Common User Upgrade, Qantas Next Generation Check-in, Rivermount College Multi-Purpose Hall and Montague Corporate Park.
Looking for a special gift?
Moss & Sparrow is a gorgeous Lifestyle Store stocking beautiful gifts, fashion, jewellery, homewares and baby products. If you are searching for a unique baby shower gift, housewarming gift or a pamper present for a special friend or family member, definitely browse the Moss & Sparrow website.
Feeling parched & peckish?
Beer drinker or not, Parched Craft Brewery have a drink for you. Parched Craft Brewery is a place you can go for lunch or dinner. Meet up with your mates, unwind and relax, take a breath and enjoy a drink or two.
Designer Jewellery
Discover exquisite antique designer jewellery for all genders and ages. Zevar has built a reputation and legacy for its exclusive handcrafted designer jewellery. Purchase via their online store or in-store at Palmdale Shopping Central in Upper Mount Gravatt.
