How do I get our website listed in search engines

[jmak]

Hi All

 

I'm struggling to get our website listed - it seems it's been a problem for a while, but neither I or anyone else picked it up because it's in our browser history so is suggested automatically as soon as you start typing.

 

There are lots of schools around the country with similar/identical names, so just the school name doesn't return much relating to us at all. If you search "schoolname" + "town", the Google or Bing panel with a map, address and link to our website appears in the panel, but the website isn't returned in the search results (OK, I gave up at page 6 of the Google results ). Lots of related links are returned, e.g. the County page about our school, myschoolholidays, goodschoolsguide, termdates.co.uk etc and they all have the correct link, but it's not the same as returning our page as a result. I did suggest that anyone even vaguely interested would probably find their way, but I do get that it's not ideal and most other schools seem to manage it.

 

I have just made some changes to our page: Previously the homepage didn't mention the school name (it was just called "Welcome" and now it's called "Schoolname Home") and the homepage didn't have any text on it - it had widgets and photos, with the name in the header and footer. It now starts with plain text in the page "Welcome to schoolname". The metadata tags are set with lots of relevant information (and have been for years).

 

Do I need to wait for the search engines' crawlers to find the updates, or have I missed anything obvious? The site is hosted on Google Sites. Our domain registrar is 123Reg. I was wondering about DNS settings - but am clutching at straws really....

 

Help gratefully received

[Cazale]

You need to add it to Google My Business. https://www.google.com/business/

 

Once you add your school and verify it, it will appear at the top of ranks locally, complete with contact details (etc), and also appear on Google Maps.

 

Nobody uses Bing (except people who don't know how to change their default search provider in IE), but they have a similar thing: https://www.bingplaces.com/

[Cazale]

"Schoolname Home"

 

I'd be tempted to put "Schoolname, location" (i.e. your town) on the homepage. The title is one of the most important aspects of ranking.

[jmak]

You need to add it to Google My Business. https://www.google.com/business/

 

Once you add your school and verify it, it will appear at the top of ranks locally, complete with contact details (etc), and also appear on Google Maps.

 

Nobody uses Bing (except people who don't know how to change their default search provider in IE), but they have a similar thing: https://www.bingplaces.com/

 

Thanks for the suggestion - I did that when I set up the website and I guess that's why it appears in the panel on the right of the screen. It just isn't listed in the main search results....

[Cazale]

Thanks for the suggestion - I did that when I set up the website and I guess that's why it appears in the panel on the right of the screen. It just isn't listed in the main search results....

You can force a crawl by registering with Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en edit: (remember to add a sitemap when you've registered, and make sure you have different/appropriate meta-tags on each page, or they'll be ignored. Also make sure you have valid alt tags on photographs, especially photographs of the school building).

 

How long ago did you verify with Google Business btw? IIRC, it takes a few weeks for them to verify you.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Cazale

[Cazale]

Just a thought: you haven't got a robots.txt file in your root folder have you? (maybe added by a previous admin?).

 

Google Webmaster Tools should tell you if anything else is wrong, they give you crawl error results.

[jmak]

You can force a crawl by registering with Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en edit: (remember to add a sitemap when you've registered, and make sure you have different/appropriate meta-tags on each page, or they'll be ignored. Also make sure you have valid alt tags on photographs, especially photographs of the school building).

 

How long ago did you verify with Google Business btw? IIRC, it takes a few weeks for them to verify you.

Thanks for the info about forcing a crawl - I'll give that a go.

 

We registered years ago and it was validated. I did check this morning and it told me I already owned that business!

[Cazale]

Thanks for the info about forcing a crawl - I'll give that a go.

 

We registered years ago and it was validated. I did check this morning and it told me I already owned that business!

 

TBH, I suspect you changing the title will make a huge difference when it gets crawled again (my page tends to get crawled every few days, and takes a little while to update after that).

 

If you want detailed stats on visits, most people use Google Analytics. I also suspect having these services pointing at your domain helps your ranking! A lot of SEO sites advise putting your business on Google Plus for that exact reason, although possibly not ideal for a school. https://analytics.google.com