SEO - Search Engine Optimisation - How to rank highly in Google
There seems to be a huge amount of information on the internet about how to rank highly in Google. The obvious reason for this is that a listing at the top of the returned results for certain keywords or keyphrases, means traffic, and traffic means good news all round. People make search engine optimisation out as if there is some magical art form which only the skilled and highly trained (and therefore highly paid) can achieve. This however is really not the case at all, and a few simple steps can be taken to improve the ranking of your web page or web site. The first is to look at what Google says to do to get listed. Submit a sitemap to google, through the Google webmasters section, this allows the google spiders to crawl your website easily and for your pages to be listed (although there is no guarantee of a listing). Next, if you have written the content of your webpages yourself and it is original, this is good news, duplicated content is frowned upon and will not help you get ranked well in google. By duplicate content, I believe roughly 60% of the webpage should be original material in order to avoid the issue.
Next, is your page interesting and informative, well written and easy on the eye? If it is then people will want to link to your page. This form of organic linking from web page to web page is the best available as you have to do nothing except write the excellent content and watch the links roll in. A link to your site is essentially a vote from the internet that your site contains something interesting. The more votes the higher you rank. Links, ideally, should be one way (incoming to your site) rather than reciprocal (although reciprocal links are helpful too). The links to your site should contain within the anchor text, the keywords or keyphrases that you are trying to rank highly for, the “vote” for your site, then shows what it is “voting” for. The keywords you are trying to rank for should ideally be listed in your html header, and in the body of your text.
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Sphere: Related ContentChapter 6 - Linking Your Pages Correctly
Before we continue with this chapter, it is time to introduce the concept of Google PageRank (PR). PageRank will be discussed in more detail in “Chapter 9 - All About PageRank”, but is discussed here in order to understand why it matters how you link pages on your website together.
PageRank is a numeric value that Google places on how important a page is on the Web. PageRank is determined by how many incoming links there are that point to a page. Incoming links are links that point to a page from another page. Such links may be located on pages on the same website (internal links) or on pages on different websites (external links). External links are valued more than internal links although the exact amount is not publicly known.
Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is in effect “casting a vote” for the other page. The more incoming links (votes) there are for a page, the more important the page is to Google, generally speaking.
Chapter 5 - Optimizing Your Web Pages
Now that you know how to structure your site and pages, you next need to optimize those pages for Google. As such, this chapter is quite important- in fact, this is the meat of the matter where many search engine optimizers (SEOs) tend spend the majority of their time on.
Put another way, this chapter discusses those aspects and elements of web pages that determine relevancy in Google.
Specifically, Google checks if and how keywords that match a search query are used on pages on your website AND on pages on offterwebsites that link to your site.
Tip: Not just HTML pages need to be optimized. If your Web site contains PDF or Word files, these too must be optimized. Google will index all files on your Web server that it can find, and these will be included in the overall site ranking algorithm.
Keyword Factors Used in the Algorithm
Chapter 4 - Structuring your Site Correctly
This chapter discusses the general structure of a website - folder structure, file names, domain names, page count, and how content should be placed on pages.
Structure by Theme and Topic
The general subject or category of your website dictates it’s theme. Loosely stated, the theme of your website is generally your Primary Keyword Phrase, as determined by your earlier efforts using WordTracker, discussed in Chapter 3 - Determining Your Best Keywords.
For example, if your site sells baby diapers and other infant products and services online, the theme of your site would probably be infant care, so every page of your site needs to include infant care (if that is the best phrase as determined by WordTracker of course). You would also have pages that discuss specific or more refined variations, like baby diapers, on your theme.
PART II - Optimizing Your Website
This section deals with those aspects and elements of your website that should be optimized for Google in order to increase relevancy. You want to maximize how relevant your site and pages are to a given search query for a given search phrase (keywords).
In addition to optimizing your site for Google, you should also strive to incorporate some best practices into your website design and structure. For additional information on general website design principles, see Appendix A - Web Site Design Do’s and Don’ts.
Chapter 3 - Determining Your Best Keywords
This is where your first and most important efforts begin. Do not skip the tasks in this chapter as they form the foundation of your entire effort. It is absolutely critical that you research and determine the most important and relevant keywords for your website.
Time spent upfront in this endeavor will reap great rewards later. If you fail to complete this important step, your chance for a top 10 ranking is greatly diminished. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough!
So What Exactly Are Keywords?
Sphere: Related ContentPutting it All Together
Now that you have your list of best and most important keyword phrases, here is the general strategy of how to use them on your web pages. Exactly how to optimize your use of keywords on your web pages is the subject of the entire next section.
Sphere: Related ContentTop 5 Things Google Looks For
Although Google looks at over 100 different criteria (which can change in importance over time) for ranking sites, here are the five aspects or elements that are currently deemed a “must-do” if you are serious about a top ranking. There are others elements that will be discussed later on that are also important. The following are listed in approximate order of importance, with the first item being much more important than the others:
Sphere: Related ContentHow Google Ranks Websites
Google uses a sophisticated and proprietary algorithm for ranking Web sites that uses over 100 different criteria in the calculation, each of which is given a specific weighting which can change over time. Because the algorithm can change, specific techniques that used to work well may no longer work as well over time. This is important to remember when your site’s ranking seems to change for no apparent reason. For this reason, optimizing your site should not be considered as a one-time task. You should always try, test, and refine your efforts.
Sphere: Related ContentWhen Google Comes Visiting
To be listed in Google’s database (or index), Google visits your site using automated programs called robots or spiders. Such programs “read” each and every page of your website, starting typically with your home page and then following each link to all other web pages on your site. When a search engine robot or spider visits your site, it is said to crawl or spider your site.
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