Ask any person in Google Rankings territory, and you’ll find questions including:
“Why did my site drop in rankings?”
“How can I make my site more search (engine) friendly?”
“What are the best ways to gain top rankings and hopefully more traffic?”
and of course, this one:
“What are the real secrets to Google search results domination?”
The questions about rankings are always a hot topic. Read on to learn more.
In my mind, while there’s a lot of hype on the internet, good copy-writing techniques with relevant, useful text that draws you in are very important for both users and engines.
But in the end, there are a few basics that always seem to work for top Google exposure. This was recently discussed by top Google spam cop Matt Cutts.
In other words, there really are no secrets.
In his recent USA Today interview, Cutts talks about five great ways to create visibility via content, links and trust–built over time.
1. Keywords/phrases on your pages
Make sure to include content on your page (text) that references the keywords you’re targeting. In other words, if you’re a dentist in Los Angeles, ensure that those keywords are on your page. Unbelievable as it may seem, many sites don’t have their related keyword listed on the website’s pages. Once you include them, stick to one to three phrases on the page–and include them early and often, using synonyms to help.
2. Tag fillings
While we’re on the topic of a dentist (pun intended), each html page is constructed via tags. Top tags to remember are the title, description and H1-H2 tags. The description tag is a great oppotunity to showcase or upsell your product or service. It’s the text that shows up in the search results and, if including keywords there, it will be boldfaced/highlighted automatically. Make it informational, not pitchy. Place keywords in the title and H1 tags to start, but don’t overdo it–no keyword stuffing (spam).
3. Links Make sure to get sites to link back to you. If you provide quality content that educates and entertains, it will happen automatically. Links are strong factors for ranking in Google. Some 100 factors (”signals”) are analyzed to determine your site’s rankings, and they can shift–so keep that link program running. Look for quality, not quantity. Number of links and quality (trust) of those links are key.
4. Blogs
“Get a blog and post often,” Cutts says. You can read more on blogs elsewhere in my blog, and I will be posting a tutorial on how to set up a Wordpress blog soon. You can also use the date and time factors for search to see how frequently your competition is adding content. (every 24 hours, every week or every month)
5. Get free search engine tools
Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, xml-sitemaps.com, xenu.com (link sleuth) and Google Local Business Center (you could end up seeing your listings at the top of the page, next to a local map).
One final tip on content. If you are not a savvy writer but can type (smile), you can get ideas by looking at article directories such as ezinearticles.com and rewrite existing content, adding your own spin. (Make sure to reference the original author, if you are not completely making it your own). Use blogsearch.google.com and technorati.com to study who is writing in your niche and what they are writing about. Review also the pay-per-click ads and your competitors. Study their landing pages, structure and messaging. Don’t copy, but get more creative.
This is a rather short post on a broad topic for controversial Web 3.0 standards. But I was intrigued by a video of the CMO at Intel, Sean Maloney, who recently discussed Web 3.0 trends(The power of a spur of the moment interview using 2008 technology web cam!).
The changing faces of web technology may have been passing you by. But keywords such as viral campaign, video explosion, user-generated content, optimized images, electronics, software development, hardware development, network protocols, internet adoption rate, mobility, hi-def cameras (check out the powerful flip camera and get a free course on how to use it), expansion of notebook devices/functionality, global thinking and people collaboration–these are all elements of the emerging Web 3.0 world.
“Television still forms an emotional connection to many across the globe, but the next three years will see drastic changes in how users connect and interact.”
A most recent report from Morgan Stanley talks about important trends in the internet and search/social media business, and it was released only a few weeks ago.
While full of charts and not too many explanations, it is revealing to see the data, including the work that has gone into discussing usage patterns, social networking, mobile, emerging markets, video and more.
So what’s the advice here? Get started with videos (youtube.com to start), a wordpress blog (mine under development), optimize your site/pages and let users and search engines know what the pages are about from keywords on the page (simple, right?). The concepts of natural, topical and non-spammy content, and metadata and titles are important, as are user-friendly designs and sound web information architectures.
Since we know that search engines love text (it’s what they can “understand”) and users love quality content, how can you write the most relevant, traffic-capturing content to meet the requirements of both?
The answer lies in focusing on the user first, not the other way around.
How do you write quality content?
You need to start by understanding the learning process of humans, what drives us and what makes us take action on something we see or hear.
The best way is to get to the basics. Do you know how we learn and what our behavioral preferences are? If not, here’s a view:
Why (35 percent of people)
What (22 percent of people)
How (18 percent of people)
So what (25 percent of people)
Knowing the above can provide more clarity in your research. When you write, think about the above. More information can be found via Bernice McCarthy’s innovative 4-mat system. It’s a helpful guide, along with an expanded “cycle of learning,” with its sequential pie charts of learning.
You can see how I answered the why (search engines, users); what (traffic capture); how (links out, pie chart reference) in this post. The last category may also have been captured (what if…), but that reader might have left before reading the line.
Make the right and left brain work together. Make it educational, but also entertaining.
We know that search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) and their associated retrieval technology anno 2008 are not much more sophisticated than they were, in say, 1998–or for that matter, in 1945 when a scientist, Vannevar Bush, released his essay, “As We May Think” (reference Internet Pioneers). The system he references is remarkably similar to modern hypertext.
While new interfaces, video, images, binary streams of any kind you can think of are easily presented into plugins and other “wares,” we are still struggling to get to the “next level” of retrieval technology.
Algorithmic search, human-aided search and meta search engines are par for the course. To create a search engine that can also include artificial intelligence and provide scalability for the massive internet is still far away.
In the meantime, we are having fun with universal search/blended search, local search and such.
So in the spirit of the power of video and the explosion of its use on the internet, I found this interesting film from Los Angeles that uses a “thousand words” with pictures and the human spirit.
When search engines can figure out all the “things” they must capture, retrieve, organize and intellectually present–for example, in this video–we have reached a goal that search engine scientists everywhere would want and that, I hope, captures users the same way it does in the film below.
This post is about saving money, specifically for you and your Google Adwords expenditures.
Many are not familiar with the powerful new approach that Google introduced in its paid-click model (pay-per-click advertising). While Goto/Overture was the pioneer by introducing paid search initially (paid advertising, sponsored links), Google came on the scene about 2002 and introduced a different “smart reward” system for performance-based ads management and relevancy of overall bidding, keywords and user experience.
This new, enhanced system allowed the engine to not only allow a bid to position ranking, but to use its own (secret) software-tailored intelligence to improve cost per click by ranking you better than your competition, at a (if done right) lower cost. If your competitor was paying $2 per click for a keyword, for example, you could pay less ($1.50, say), and still be ranked ahead of the competition.
While the current Quality Score (QS) was introduced later and improved over time, it is an important component of the Adwords system today. It is something you should try to understand and apply across all your current accounts.
The Quality Score algorithm in Adwords (search ads and search network are slightly different) is not revealed for obvious reasons (spamming/black hat), but allows ads youcreateto lift into better positions (ad rank) and lowered price per click based on a few factors you can easily control–or at least try to make “least imperfect.”
Top factors that influence positive, money-saving opportunities using Adwords:
Keyword use and relevancy in ad creative (ad text);
Tight adgroup matching to content/keywords (Do not dilute with lots of keywords that are not related);
Landing page copy and keyword relevancy from bid (the Google Adsbot reads and records keywords on page, similar to Google Bot);
Minimum keyword bid;
Ad positioning, monitoring; and
Click-through rates (CTR) and overall performance history across your campaigns.
Please read further quality scoring resources below, but here are the top three quickest ways to affect your budget and performance:
1. Keyword matching in title of ad, included in body as well (derivative keyword, plurals, etc). Don’t miss this. 2. Ensure keyword(s) are included and reflected early and often in landing page text, including SEO compliant page setup (Title, description, H1 tags, related keywords in body content, etc). Include more than just graphics and a few bullet points.
3. Watch your CTR percentage and tune it upward by creating A/B ads and testing their performance. Remove or pause underperforming keywords; they can affect your QS negatively.
Your competition may be using techniques like these already. Study their landing pages as well, including keyword use for relevancy. Then do all this slightly better, and you will win, while optimizing your Google Adwords budget. Make sure not only to optimize for Google, but learn the best practices for high landing page conversion by reading further materials at MarketingSherpa.
Adding links and pages About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, SiteMap and SSL certificates for secure transactions are included as positive QS parameters for all landing pages.
You can review your Quality Score grade right inside the Adwords system:
Get more free information and download software, tools and e-books from Jon’s Search Marketing Resource Center on topics like how to drive tons of traffic, convert visitors from landing pages and make lots of money online.
ULTIMATE Guide to Search Engine Optimization
