April 16, 2017 How to Make Your Site Google-Friendly

While many consider content marketing to be the darling of the search engines at present, there is another aspect to ranking your pages well, and that lies on the technical side of things.

Google loves to reward pages that are technically done well with high rankings, as they feel that while you may have great content, if your user experience is less than wonderful, they’ll say no thank you and look elsewhere.

So how can you satisfy the technicians at Google and get them to rank your pages better? Let’s have a look at 5 tips you can use to ensure that your pages are Google-friendly and provide the best user experience you can deliver.

5 Tips for optimizing the technical side of your web pages

Page speed – You may have heard the latest human attention span statistic; that we now are transfixed a mere 8 seconds, one second less than a Goldfish. Therefore it should come as no surprise that Google probably will not rank your site well if it loads slowly, as people will consider this a poor user experience, or simply not go there at all!

Internal links – Google likes to see a good internal linking plan, one that provides users with useful links to relevant pages inside of and outside of the site. And also this plays a role in passing Pagerank. Also, don’t make the mistake of having multiple navigation menus. Use one, as well as a sitemap and a link back to your home page from each page.

Make sure you are Schema compliant – Schema.org is the web language markup that Google, Yahoo and Bing have consented to use in order to better see what your pages are about. This is one you’ll need a webmaster for.

Use HTML elements – A significant part of how your page will be ranked is determined by the use of certain HTML elements that indicate what your content is about. This includes the use of H1-H4 tags, meta data and image optimization, to name a few.

Keywords you wish to rank for – This is your opportunity to tell Google in no uncertain terms what your page is all about, and hopefully be ranked for these terms. You’ll have to make sure they are found in all the places Google is looking for them, such as title tags, titles, description, the body of your content and links.

December 16, 2014 Need to Get a Handle on your Local Listings? Here’s How!

Managing your local listings can be a headache if you don’t have a plan. There are lots of moving parts, and even a relatively small error can lead to problems that can cost you in a rather expensive way.

In some ways managing your local listings is more work than a site serving globally. You need to make sure all your data is correct for each location and this can be challenging. Let’s take a look at some of the essentials necessary for good local listing management.

Getting the basics of your local listings in order

Here are some of the things you’ll need to get in order from the start.

  • The most essential aspect of managing your local listings is to ensure that your NAP data, that is your company’s name, addresses and phone contact, (along with all your other data) is correct across all locations and platforms.
  • Many times local companies make the mistake of lacking a phone contact number. Don’t be that guy! Even if it is only a voicemail ensure your customers and prospects can reach you.
  • Make sure to completely fill out any profiles online that contain your information. This is a great way to get info out there about your business, and the more you can inform readers, the greater shot you’ll have at getting that new lead.

Taking the next step

Once your basics are covered, make sure you are taking advantage of all the wonderful sites and opportunities that are available to local businesses. A lot of them are free, and others have a modest fee. Here’s just a few to get you going.

  • Ensure that you have a local presence in Google, Yahoo and Bing.
  • Look at local directories like Infogroup, Acxiom, Localeze, and Factual as aggregators like these provide data to mobile companies and search engines alike.
  • Look into listings with properties like Yelp, Yext, Foursquare, Facebook. You’ll find that their local packages can be less than you might have thought, and can make a huge difference.
  • Use tools like Bright Local, Moz Local or Whitespark to monitor your citations and track your progress. This will be an ongoing process, as you’ll want to keep getting more and more citations that will give your business even greater reputation.

December 11, 2014 How to Know What Google Uses to Determine Where your Web Pages Rank

What Effect Do Your Keywords Have in the Search Results?

There are many factors that go into determining where your pages rank in the Google search results, at last count more than 200 and climbing. And this is only a guess, using the available empirical evidence SEO’s and webmasters have been able to divine from looking intently behind the curtain.

While SEO is at least in part a crap shoot, we can make very educated determinations regarding what we ought to do and ought not to do to our pages to try and get them found highly in Googles search results.

In a search world not so long ago and far away, you could get top rankings simply by stuffing as many of your primary keywords into your content as you could reasonable fit. Not any longer. These days Google’s search algorithm has become smarter, and is able to discern a great deal more intent, and recognizes keyword stuffing instantly.

This is not to suggest you can’t do well by strategically inserting keywords in all the right places. Indeed, you should do this. You just have to do it naturally.

How to use keywords to increase your search rankings

Shaping your page content to focus on a particular keyword ranking is something of an art. Often the domain name may have little to nothing related to the keyword in question, and that’s one reason keywords in domain names are no longer the signal they used to be.

Today having the keyword in your URL, title tag, H1-5 headings and sprinkled judiciously throughout the content is the best way you can help your cause.

What keyword tactics can hurt you

There are some ways you can shoot yourself in the foot in this respect as well. Keyword stuffing, that aforementioned relic of yesteryear, is but one.

Another frequent mistake is that when acquiring backlinks, webmasters often tend to go hog wild making their anchor text is all the same keyword. Nothing screams unnatural to Google more than a link profile employing only the most prized keywords. Mix it up with a variety of keywords, and some non-keyword phrases like “click here”, and others.