Google releases updated version of their SEO starter guide - Oct 2010
Google provides general guidance for site owners on getting the best rankings for their websites - they do not give away any of their secrets and most of what they say is not a surprise. However this new Google Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide provides a very nice guide to best practices for increasing the effectiveness of your web site with people and search engines. Here I include extracts of the key points taken from the new SEO starter guide (most of this is taken directly from the google guide without embellishment by me but I have cut out quite a lot of the padding, explanations and examples):
Create unique, accurate page titles
When your web page appears in a search results page, the contents of the title tag will usually appear in the first line of the results. This can help users recognize if the page is likely to be relevant to their search.
- Choose a title that effectively communicates the topic of the page's content.
- The title for your homepage can list the name of your website business and could include other bits of important information like the physical location of the business or maybe a few of its main focuses or offerings.
- Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title tag, which helps Google know how the page is distinct from the others on your site.
Make use of the "description" meta tag
When your web page appears in a search results page, Google might use your page description as snippets for your pages.
- A page's description meta tag gives Google a summary of what the page is about. Whereas a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph.
- Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result.
- Use unique descriptions for each page.
Improve the structure of your URLs and use words in URLs
URLs are displayed in search results. Simple-to-understand URLs will convey content information easily.
- Creating descriptive categories and filenames for the documents on your website can lead to better crawling of your web pages by search engines.
- It can create easier, "friendlier" URLs for those that want to link to your content.
- If your URL contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more information about the page.
- Users expect lower-case URLs and remember them better
Make your site easier to navigate
The navigation can help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important. Although Google's search results are provided at a page level, Google also likes to have a sense of what role a page plays in the bigger picture of the site.
- Do you have enough pages around a specific topic area that it would make sense to create a page describing these related pages (e.g. root page -> related topic listing -> specific topic)?
- A breadcrumb is a row of internal links at the top or bottom of the page that allows visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the root page.
- Prepare two sitemaps: one for users, one for search engines:
An HTML site map can help users easily find content that they are looking for, and an XML Sitemap can help search engines find pages on your site. - Avoid creating complex webs of navigation links, e.g. linking every page on your site to every other page or
going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (so that it takes twenty clicks) - Use mostly text for navigation - makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site.
Have a useful 404 page
Users will occasionally come to a page that doesn't exist on your site, either by following a broken link or typing in the wrong URL. Having a custom 404 page that kindly guides users back to a working page on your site can greatly improve a user's experience.
Create fresh, unique content
Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors - interesting sites will increase their recognition on their own. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.
- Avoid rehashing (or even copying) existing content that will bring little extra value to users or having duplicate or near-duplicate versions of your content across your site.
- Stay organized around the topic: Organize your content so that visitors have a good sense of where one content topic begins and another ends.
- Breaking your content up into logical chunks or divisions helps users find the content they want faster.
- Use paragraph, subheading and layout separation.
- Create content primarily for your users, not search engines. Avoid:
- Inserting numerous unnecessary keywords aimed at search engines that are annoying or nonsensical to users
- Having blocks of text like "frequent misspellings used to reach this page" that add little value for users deceptively
- Hiding text from users, but displaying it to search engines
Use heading tags (H1 - H6) to emphasize important text
Heading tags typically make text contained in them larger than normal text on the page, this is a visual cue to users that this text is important and could help them understand something about the type of content underneath the heading text.
- Put some thought into what the main points and subpoints of the content on the page will be and decide where to use heading tags appropriately.
- Multiple heading sizes create a hierarchical structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your document.
Write better anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text that users see for a link. The better your anchor text is, the easier it is for users to navigate and for Google to understand what the page you're linking to is about.
- Choose descriptive text not generic anchor text like "page", "article", or "click here". The anchor text you use for a link should provide at least a basic idea of what the page linked to is about.
- Aim for short but descriptive text-usually a few words or a short phrase.
- Make it easy for users to distinguish between regular text and the anchor text of your links.
Optimize your use of images
Optimizing your image filenames and alt text makes it easier for image search projects like Google Image Search to better
understand your images.
- All images should have a short descriptive filename and "alt" attribute. The "alt" attribute allows you to specify alternative text for the image if it cannot be displayed for some reason.
- Store files in specialized directories and manage them using common file formats - it is easier to find the paths to images if they are stored in one directory.
- An Image Sitemap file can provide Googlebot with more information about the images found on your site.
Make effective use of robots.txt
A "robots.txt" file tells search engines whether they can access and therefore crawl parts of your site. You may not want certain pages of your site crawled because they might not be useful to users if found in a search engine's search results.
Be aware of comment spam
Setting the value of the "rel" attribute of a link to "nofollow" will tell Google that certain links on your site shouldn't be followed
If your site has user generated content, eg a blog with public commenting turned on, links within those comments could pass your reputation to pages that you may not be comfortable vouching for. Linking to sites that Google considers spammy can affect the reputation of your own site.
Promote your website in the right ways
Promoting your site and having quality links could lead to increasing your site’s reputation. While most of the links to your site will be gained gradually, as people discover your content through search or other ways and link to it, Google understands that you'd like to let others know about the hard work you've put into your content. Effectively promoting your new content will lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in the same subject. As with most points covered in this document, taking these recommendations to an extreme could actually harm the reputation of your site.
- A blog post on your own site letting your visitor base know that you added something new is a great way to get the word out about new content or services.
- Putting effort into the offline promotion of your company or site can also be rewarding. For example, if you have a business site, make sure its URL is listed on your business cards, letterhead, posters, etc. You could also send out recurring newsletters to clients through the mail letting them know about new content on the company's website.
- If you run a local business, adding its information to Google Places will help you reach customers on Google Maps and web search.
- Know about social media sites - Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content. Reach out to those in your site's related community - Chances are, there are a number of sites that cover topic areas similar to yours. Opening up communication with these sites is usually beneficial. Hot topics in your niche or community could spark additional ideas for content or building a good community resource.
- Avoid spamming link requests out to all sites related to your topic area
- Do not purchase links from another site with the aim of getting PageRank instead of traffic
- Avoid attempting to promote each new, small piece of content you create; go for big, interesting items involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the top of these services.
Conclusion:
There is some new guidance here particularly about promotion of your website - Googles seems to be saying that you should use blogs and social media to promote your website (but don't take it to the extreme?) and it seems to be attaching significant weight to word-of-mouth buzz with building your website's reputation.
Posted October 2010
Regards
Michael Spencer,
michael@epsilis.co.uk
Epsilis - Web Designers and Search Engine Optimisation Specialists
47 Farthing Drive
Letchworth Garden City
Hertfordshire (Herts)
SG6 2TR
UK
Articles on various aspect of search engine optimisation: -
Making the most of SEO using your website CMS system - Is your Website or Webshop Content Management System Search Engine Friendly? Do you know how to make the most of using it for search engine optimisation or is that something you think is being done automatically for you by the software? If you are just updating your web site and are not thinking about SEO you are missing out on opportunities to get better search rankings for your website.
Google Places - local business search - Google is moving much more to local based search results and is now blending Local Business Places (previously Maps)search results with Natural search results and the distinction is now blurred but no business should miss out on perhaps the most effective measure they can take to become visible on local searches.
Google releases updated version of their SEO starter guide - Google provides general guidance for site owners on getting the best rankings for their websites - they do not give away any of their secrets and most of what they say is not a surprise. However this new Google Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide provides a very nice guide to best practices for increasing the effectiveness of your web site with people and search engines.
Tips to Help Search Engine Ranking For New Websites - Google's algorithms are designed to prevent new websites from surging straight to the top of the engine rankings. This is commonly referred to as "sandboxing". So what can new site owners do to minimise this problem?
SEO for Ecommerce Websites and Web Shops - Search Engine Optimisation for ecommerce sites is always a challenge. It is likely that your ecommerce content management software may not be helping much and your other main problem is probably that you are selling the same products as a bunch of other online shops.
Standing out in the Crowd - Optimising website content - Everyone is interested in Search Engine Optimisation for their website these days. It is therefore becoming much harder to get sites to the top of the rankings. So how do you get your website on to page 1 of Google?
Is SEO all Smoke and Mirrors?... You hear so many tales of bad experiences with SEO and so many companies pestering you regularly offering Search Engine Optimisation of one sort or another and - how do you tell who you can trust?
Search Rankings and Google Tools - Google provides a number of useful tools to help you get better search rankings. You should know about these if you are interested in marketing your website more effectively.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) Glossary - commonly used phrases explained.
Good or Bad Search Engine Optimisation - How to tell the good from the bad SEO? Offers and promises that seem "to good to be true". The problem for most site owners is that they just do not know what are valid SEO techniques and what are not, so I will try to explain how to spot the good from the bad when you see it.
SEO and Web Page Design.... an overview of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and relevance to Web Page Design
Beginners guide to Search Engine Optimisation - If you want to know a little more about the basic techniques of ethical search engine optimisation
Link Popularity and Link Building Suggestions - Some search engines use Link Popularity as a significant ranking tool so obtaining good quality relevant links to your website can give your site a boost in the search engines