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Google's job is to give their users the best possible results. Remember that if you do things the
right way, there are ways to get ahead. Don't take shortcuts. If you give Google the thing that he
wants, which is the best results for something that somebody's looking for, you will win.
Here are 5 Major things that make optimization successful…
1. Quality Site
a. Speed
i. If you have an old-fashioned, clunky website or a rudimentary sales
funnel with only one page, you might be wasting time and energy trying to
optimize it.
ii. The speed of your site is very important
b. Accessible
i. If you're looking at your site, and you've got complicated plugins or a lot of
code, clean that up! Anything that makes the site load faster—get rid of it.
Looking for advice on making your site accessible? Do a quick Google
search and you’ll find tons of websites offering free information.
c. Crawlable
i. Search engines have something called "spiders," which is kind of weird
and futuristic sounding. But as long as you understand that conceptually
and know how to work with them, you can clean up the search engine
results for your homepage OR for individual web pages. So let's say a
search engine bot starts on your homepage OR one of your other pages.
It follows the link from one page to another on your site. If your website
has a lot of internal links that are image based (as opposed to text), then
spiders won't follow those links.
💡Pro Tip: It's important to have links that are text-based if you want a
search engine bot to find those pages on your website.
2. Keyword Research
So, just as you use a search engine every day to find information that interests you, you
need to pay attention to what kinds of content are likely to catch your market’'s
attention—and then optimize your site accordingly.
a. Volume
i. If you want to make a rough guess about the volume of your business,
just Google it. Then using a free Google AdWords account, type in some
keywords related to your business—remembering that keywords come in
phrases—and see what volume comes up.
ii. If you get the actual keyword phrase in your domain, that's great.
iii. Let's take a look at a keyword tool that's called the Google keyword
planner tool. To use it, type in any phrase that you want to find keywords
for.
b. Competition
i. It makes a big difference to understand your competition. Remember that
the first page of search results matters most; most people never go to the
second page. In addition, make sure you examine how big and specific
the sites are that you're up against.
c. Value
i. The term "buy party board game" is probably not a very hard term to go
for. I’ll take 1 click from the term "buy party board game" compared to 10
clicks from the term "find party board game". The intentions of the
keywords really sets the value.
ii. Long tail keywords - are not searched very often and are more specific.
It's okay to go for longer-term keywords.
💡Pro Tip: You can use a general keyword phrase with another keyword
phrase that clearly defines the intent.
3. Onpage Optimization
a. Page Text
i. There are several things to keep in mind when writing copy for your
website. First, you have to be aware of how many words you've written,
and don't write for the sake of writing more words. Search engines can
detect when a site has been over-optimized, and they penalize those sites
by lowering their rank on search results pages. You should also make
sure that your desired keyword phrase is part of your copy.
ii. You may want to sprinkle your keyword throughout your page, but don't
do so in an unnatural way that doesn't fit with the rest of the content. You
wouldn't want to be suspected of keyword stuffing.
iii. Over the past couple of years, Google has become smarter about how it
recognizes words. It now identifies common variations in names and
terms. For example, I optimize for real estate investments, real estate
investment, and real estate investor.
💡Pro Tip: Once you've determined which search terms to target,
broaden your strategy by creating a list of two or three variations on those
keywords. Then sprinkle some of those synonyms into your copy
naturally. This way, you're not relying on a single keyword. You're also
telling Google that your content is relevant for many search terms.
b. Metadata - defines hidden HTML elements that explain website information to
search engines, helping retailers optimize their presence online.
i. Title
- You'll want to make sure that your page title is very succinct, but make
sure it fits within the character limit. According to Google, website title
should be within the 50-60 character limit.
- When creating your page title, don't forget to put on your
marketing hat. So when you are writing page titles, use those
keyword phrases but make it something desirable that people
want to click on. Imagine you're creating a subject line or a
headline for the audience: what would catch their attention? One
of the biggest factors in SEO is that people actually click on the
link when they find you in search results. So really, that page title
is one of the most important factors that you have with SEO.
ii. Meta Description
- When you use Google, you might see a short summary of your page's
content underneath the link. This short summary—called a meta
description—is added by the page's owner and is one way to attract a
reader's attention.
iii. Meta Keywords
- There is also another thing called meta keywords, but from what Google
tells us, these no longer really factor into search rankings.However, it is
still part of what makes up your metadata
c. Emphasis
i. Headers (H1, H2) - Google doesn’t read each word exactly the same. By
adding headers, it tells Google that these words are extra important. You
can insert keywords in your headline but you don't want headers that are
only your keyword.
ii. Bolding text or using Alt Text for images
- So remember, we were talking about search engine spiders crawling
down websites. If you want to keep them on your site, put important
information up top. Links to other sites should be at the bottom.
💡Pro Tip: As you know, Google owns YouTube. When I added a YouTube video to a page on
one of my sites, I noticed I got a boost in search rank. It seems that adding videos to your pages
is definitely invaluable and something you should consider adding to your site. Always
remember that if the links you're adding take visitors away from your site, they should be going
to high quality relevant sites.
Remember we were talking about search engine spiders? They start from the top of your page
and comes crawling down your websites. If you want to keep them on your site, put important
information up top and links to other sites should be at the bottom to avoid spiders going to their
website.
4. Onpage Linking - People often talk about the importance of links from other sites, but not
enough people talk about links on your own site. I've been telling you about how spiders crawl
your website, visit your menu, look at the links, and go to different pages. I'd like you to think
about the structure of your website and the way that spiders will crawl through it.
An analogy used to describe the concept of link-building is "link juice."
Link juice is the value passed to a webpage by links that point at it. Google sees links as
a vote of confidence toward your site, helping it rank higher in search results.
A link from one page of your website to another is called an internal link. Both users and
search engines find internal links useful because they help visitors navigate through your
site and find content they want to see.
To make sure your site's menus are indexable by search engines, use text-based links
instead of graphics.
So make sure that your site is well-organized, and then beyond that, you should have
links within the text of your pages. So one paragraph might include a keyword phrase
and link to a page about that topic, and another page about a different topic can link to a
different page.
Actually, Google isn't looking for any particular website. They want to find a website that
lets people easily get around and find all the information they need, but they don't want it
to be too strict.
Make sure your site has a site map, which is just a structured list of links that indicates to
search engines what's important on your site. You can also tell the search engines
(through the site map) which parts of your site are important or not by promoting or
demoting certain links.
5. Offpage Linking
a. Quantity
b. Quality - A link from a website with high domain authority and trusted by both
robots and people. Having a backlink from a “.edu” site is the holy grail!
c. Relevancy - Pages with your links that are not related to you will not make any
difference. If you sell dog food and a page that’s selling computers has your links
is irrelevant compared to when a major pet blog has your link.
Best Regards,
Goran B Edstrom - SWEDEN - Proud - MarketHive - Entrepreneur 1 Member.
