When I first started as a webmaster,
there were numerous search engines around. Nowadays, though, we are, for the
most part, left with only Google and Bing, with Google providing the majority
of visitors to most websites, including thesitewizard.com. This article
provides some tips on how you can improve the position of your site in the
search engine results on Google.
Improving
Your Site's Placement on Google's Search Engine Results
Google ranks a page according to a
large number of factors. Exactly what these factors are is apparently a trade
secret, although there are number of well-known things that contribute to the
ranking of a page.
1.
Links
Pointing to Your Website
One of the
factors that contribute to a web page being considered "important" is
the number of links pointing to that page. For example, if your page has 100
quality links leading to it, it will be ranked higher (in Google's estimation)
than one that only has 20.
But what
are "quality" links"? These are links from other popular pages,
that is, pages that have, themselves, many (quality) links pointing to them.
(Yeah, I know. My definition is circular. And it's possible that the search
engine has other factors that determine the quality of a link.)
Anyway, in
general, since Google ranks your pages according to the number of links
pointing at your page, your site will do better if it has more links pointing
to it.
2.
Your Title
Tag
Google
seems to give weight to the title of your page. By title, I mean the text that
is sandwiched between the HTML <TITLE> tags in the <HEAD> section
of your web page. If you use a Web editor that automatically inserts a title
like "New Document", remember to change it to some meaningful text
with your keywords inside to reap the benefit of this feature. Otherwise, your
site will only feature in the search results when someone looks for "New
Document".
Note: by
"keywords", I mean the words people will use when searching for your
site. For example, if your site sells bicycles, then one keyword for it would
be "bicycles", since that's the word you'd expect people to use when
searching for bicycles.
3.
Your Page
Must Have the Words You Think People Will Search For
Besides
the title tag, if you want your website to feature in Google's results when
someone searches for a set of words, say "Widget X", those words must
actually occur on your page. Think about it from the point of view of a search
engine. If you don't put the words "Widget X" somewhere on the page,
how is the search engine supposed to know that the page deals with that topic?
The search engine is not a human being who can draw inferences from the general
tone and content of the page. Even if it can handle some synonyms, you're going
to compete with other sites who have specifically placed those words on their
site.
I know
this point seems self-evident (once you've come across it). However, from
experience, many webmasters don't seem to realise ("realize" in US
English) that when they are first starting out.
4.
Keyword-laden
Links
According
to a paper published by one of Google's founders, if the links pointing to your
page has some words in them, those words will be regarded by Google as an
additional indication of the content of your page. For example, a link with the
text "Cheap Shoe Store" pointing at your page will cause Google to
think that your page is relevant when someone searches for "cheap shoe
store".
However,
my recommendation is that if you think a particular set of words is relevant to
your site, don't rely on some random site on the Internet to link to you with
those words. Put them directly on your page.
Other
Google Tips
1.
Use a
Search Engine Site Map
Although
not strictly necessary, if you find that Google (or Bing, for that matter) is
not able to discover some pages on your website, create a site map. I don't
mean the type of user site map that you see on thesitewizard.com (which is
primarily meant for human beings), but a site map that is specially designed for
search engines. While such a site map does not guarantee that Google will index
and list every page, it will at least help it discover those missing pages if
your site design is such that it has impeded the search engine from finding
them before.
2.
Check Your
Robots.txt File
Like all
respectable search engines, Google will read and obey a special text file on
your website called the "robots.txt" file. You can control where
search engines are allowed to go with this file. A corollary of this is that
you can also inadvertantly block the search engine from going to certain parts
of your site. It's generally a good idea to create a robots.txt file for your
website, even if it's an empty file with zero bytes (which means that search
engines are allowed to index everything on your site).
3.
ALT text
on Images
If you
have been placing images on your website without bothering to place ALT text,
now is a good time to add them. An "ALT text" (or alternate text) is
just a way of putting a brief description (using words) of what your picture
shows. They are needed by the software used by the blind so that they know
what's in the picture. Since all search engines, including Google, are
essentially blind, relying on words, they also need the ALT text. The
description you give in the ALT text is treated like the words occurring on
your web page, although I don't know if they are regarded as being of equal
importance.
4.
Be Careful
Whom You Hire
Google's
use of links to rank a website has at least 2 side effects on the Internet.
Firstly, people seeking to rank higher have engaged companies to furnish them
with zillions of links. Those companies presumably set up a whole bunch of
sites for the sole purpose of linking to their clients. Secondly, as a response
to this, the Google programmers have retaliated (and continue to do so) by
discrediting links from such "link networks" as well as penalising
the sites that pay them for the service.
It's
apparently possible to run afoul of this even if you have no intention of
buying links. For example, if you are not careful, and have engaged a search
engine optimisation ("SEO") company to improve your site's
performance on Google, and they use a link network, your site may inadvertantly
get caught in the crossfire of this ongoing war between the link networks and
Google.
5.
The META
Keywords Tag is Ignored
The Google
search engine ignores the META keywords tag, and has always done so. If you
have received spam from some wannabe search engine optimisation
"specialist" telling you that you need to add this to your site,
think twice about hiring him/her, since this recommendation already gives you a
hint of the extent of his/her knowledge.
6.
Dynamic
Pages and Google
Like all
modern search engines (yeah, all 2 of them), Google is able to index
dynamically generated pages, so long as a link to those pages exists somewhere.
For example, a page like "http://example.com/showstuff.php?page=19"
can be indexed by Google, so you don't really need to rewrite your URLs if you
can't be bothered.
If you
have a dynamically generated page that you think should be indexed, just make
sure you put a link to it somewhere on your site. This applies to all web pages
that you want indexed anyway, so even if you don't understand what I mean by
"dynamic page", it doesn't matter. Make sure that all the pages of
your site can be found through at least one link on your site. If they are not
linked to from somewhere, no one will be able to find it, neither Google nor
your visitors (unless they are psychic).
7.
Disabling
the Caching of Your Page Will Not Affect Your Page Rank
In ancient
history, it was claimed that Google would penalise pages that forbade it from
caching their pages. As you know, the Google search engine caches the pages it
indexes unless otherwise instructed. To avoid problems with people who dislike
this, they allow sites to instruct Google not to cache those pages.
Google
have apparently publicly denied that disabling caching would affect the page's
ranking in any way. I tend to believe their claim.
8.
Don't
Waste Your Time With The Google Toolbar's Page Rank
In
prehistoric times, you could add something known as the Google Toolbar to your
web browser, and get something known as the "Page Rank" shown for any
site you visit. In those days, the "Page Rank" would give you an idea
of how important Google thought your site was.
Nowadays,
the Page Rank is only one of apparently zillions of factors used by Google in
ranking a website. They also discourage people from focusing on the Page Rank,
and as a result, do not actually update the rank displayed on the toolbar in a
timely fashion. (That is, the rank shown is often many months out of date.) In
fact, I'm not sure if the page rank is even shown on the toolbar anymore.
In other
words, it's not worth your time to install the toolbar.
Schema Creator
ReplyDeleteSchemas provide users with an enhanced experience where they are presented with specific details about a particular company or organization on search engine results pages (SERPs). With this tool, you can customize how your results, including your reviews, operating hours, events, etc., will appear on Google and other search engines.
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If you like this tool, there’s also a Scheme app which you can try for free for 14 days. There are multiple price structures depending on your current needs / business size.
Schema Creator
ReplyDeleteSchemas provide users with an enhanced experience where they are presented with specific details about a particular company or organization on search engine results pages (SERPs). With this tool, you can customize how your results, including your reviews, operating hours, events, etc., will appear on Google and other search engines.
You can also integrate the schema code easily – it’s as simple as copying and pasting. The tool also has a free WordPress plugin version.
If you like this tool, there’s also a Scheme app which you can try for free for 14 days. There are multiple price structures depending on your current needs / business size.
Schema Creator
ReplyDeleteSchemas provide users with an enhanced experience where they are presented with specific details about a particular company or organization on search engine results pages (SERPs). With this tool, you can customize how your results, including your reviews, operating hours, events, etc., will appear on Google and other search engines.
You can also integrate the schema code easily – it’s as simple as copying and pasting. The tool also has a free WordPress plugin version.
If you like this tool, there’s also a Scheme app which you can try for free for 14 days. There are multiple price structures depending on your current needs / business size.