How to get Google to love your website
There are many blog articles that will tell you the best ways in which to optimise your website so that it appears higher in the search engine ranking results. If you are not familiar with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) then trying to keep up with what the experts are telling you can get very confusing.
We have listed some SEO ranking factors that we know Google loves. If you start with these small points and continue to work on them then you will already be on your way to a successful SEO strategy.
How to get Google to LOVE your website
Page Titles
Page titles – tell search engines what your site is about and you should include keywords and phrases within your page titles. Each page within your website should have a different page title.
If you are unsure of where the page title is shown in the search results, it is the piece of text that is bold and underlined, the website address and page description follows this. Depending on the type of website you have will determine where you will need to add your page titles and other meta data. If you have a CMS this can be done via the administrative section and if you have a flat website, this will need to be hardcoded in so you may need to ask a web developer to help.
Alt Tags
Alt tags – within your images will make your website more accessible. The Alt tag is used when the image is not visible on the page it is also displayed when a user hovers their mouse over the image.
The Alt tag should be very descriptive and contain keywords to explain exactly what the image is and if it’s descriptive, concise and clear it will help with your search engine rankings.
Links
Links – Make sure you link back to your website/blog anywhere you can. Add it to your Facebook and Twitter account, Google+, and Pinterest. Good quality links will be recognised by Google and this will push up your search engine rankings. It is also worth linking to other websites as well but make sure that they are relevant to your business. Backlinking is also very important to the Google Algorithm, use content to backlink to your website.
Content
Content – The idea is to create useful, unique and helpful content. Take time writing your website content as it does pay off in the end. Remember that Google isn’t human so it will not read your content but there will be people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say, offer readers something that they will want to share. The most important point is to make sure that your content is relevant to your business and include keywords that are based around the services that you offer. Think about what keywords/phrases people would search for to find your business.
Keywords
Keywords – All though there is much speculation about keywords and if they are as important today as they were a few years ago, it is still advisable to create content that is keyword rich but remember not to get carried away with keyword “stuffing”. Make sure that your content reads well and that your keywords are added in the right place, i.e. title tags, alt tags and within your website content.
Social Bookmarking
Bookmarking – The only way in which you will get your website noticed is if people share your content! So, make sure that it is interesting. If you have an E.commerce website make sure you use eye-catching images and quality product descriptions. If your content is useful people will want to share it to their friends via Twitter or Facebook, this will lead to valuable visitors to your website.
Easy Navigation
Easy Navigation – Once you have encouraged people to your website, ideally you would want them to stay there. Make sure they your website is user friendly and it is easy to navigate, products are easy to find and contact details are clear.
Social Networks
Social Networks – Another way in which you can increase Google rankings is to push your content on Social Networking sites and create natural links back to your website. Share your blogs on Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook too as Google tracks these links. Having a Google+ account will also be very beneficial after all having a presence on Google+ and having a +1 button on your site will help increase visibility search.
Remember to keep your website content updated, avoid duplicate content and make sure your content is fresh, you can do this quite regularly with blogs and news posts.