So you want to know how to get your website on Google? And why wouldn't you? The latest figures show that Google handles 91.25% of Australia's Internet searches*. That's a lot of people researching products and services on Google - some who will be looking for exactly what you're offering.

As business owners, we're at the point where if we don't ensure our websites appear on Google for relevant searches we risk losing market share by not making an appearance in the offerings.

Ensuring your website can be found on search engines is a marketing activity that is fundamental to attracting and connecting to customers on the Internet and cannot be ignored.

Pay your way or get targeted traffic for free

There are two ways to get your website on Google:

• Pay for it using Google Adwords or
• Ensure your website is "Google friendly", using search engine optimisation so that Google can take a snapshot of what you have to offer and in turn, offer it to those looking for what your service or product - for free.

Advertise using Google Adwords

Adwords (adwords.google.com) is Google's paid advertising platform.

Adwords allows you to promote your business using a text ad with a link to your website. Your ads appear on the right hand side the search results and you only pay when a user clicks on your ad and visits your website.

You can choose the keywords that your ad appears next to and the price you are willing to pay per click through to your website.

Your advertisement takes the form of a headline with two lines of text - use the headline to capture the attention of your audience and the following lines to entice the user to click through to your website. Make them a special offer, tell them what benefit your website will provide - give them a reason to visit. For best results, make sure the web page the user clicks through to addresses the elements you promoted in your ad.

Google Adwords immediately drives traffic to your website. It is simple to set-up and I recommend keeping your budget low while you are testing to find the right combination of keywords, headlines and ad text.

TIP: Choose keywords that reflect intentions that are advanced within the sales funnel. These keywords are usually cheaper to bid on because they are specific three to four word phrases and easier to convert into sales or enquires.

Optimise your website to be Google Friendly using SEO

If you want your website to be included in Google and other search engines - it's vital that your website is built in a way that is accessible and optimised for best results - this is commonly known as search engine optimisation (SEO).

While it may sound complicated, the theory behind SEO is simple:

1. Make sure that Google can crawl through your website to take a snapshot of what your website is about - do this by following the Google webmaster guidelines.
2. When developing the content of your website think about the keywords people would use to find you and use those words in relevant places throughout your web pages.
3. Offer compelling information or useful tools to encourage other websites to link to you.
4. Create a website that is more relevant to what you are offering than your competitors.
5. When your site is ready submit it to Google at www.google.com/addurl.html.
   

The beauty of a well optimised website is that it will deliver free, targeted traffic for the life of the website. Getting your website on Google ensures that you can be connected with people who are looking for what you're offering - optimising it means you can connect with these people for free.

I recommend that if you have invested in SEO (and I always advise that you do) you should run a Google Adwords campaign until your SEO results appear. At that time, you can stop paying for visitors and start receiving high quality visitors for free.

TIP: Remember that your website is made up of all of your web pages. The more web pages that are optimised for Google, the more the chances you will have of picking up targeted visitors for free.

* Source: http://twitter.com/Hitwise_AP/status/1562070525

Clare Lancaster is the founder of Dot Marketing an online strategy and marketing consultancy and has been working on the Internet since 2001. She writes a business and online marketing blog for small business owners and has recently launched www.twitterguide.com.au. Visit www.clarelancaster.com.au to find out more or follow her on Twitter.