Optimize Your Website for Google in 5 Easy Steps!

The battle to stay on top of search engine result pages requires a website owner to constantly improve page content. Although Bing and Yahoo use HTML tag structures, Google optimization is trickier. The search engine giant separates the affiliate pages and ad sites from domains that provide distinctive, relevant content. Because of Google’s stricter guidelines and requirements, website owners need to optimize pages to improve Google index rank.

Keywords and Phrases

Keywords and phrases are main content components of a website’s text. Google evaluates the content of a site and places relevance factors on keyword phrases that correspond to popular search terms. For instance, if a website’s focus is on “boat repair,” the keyword phrase should display in several places within the content pages. Focus on full phrases rather than one keyword. Full phrases are more specific and reduce the amount of competition for search engine rank.  Keep away from keyword stuffed content; which is the unnatural text flow that inflates the frequency of the keywords. Keyword stuffed content is detected by Google and lowers the website’s index rank.

The Title Tag

The title is coded within the title tag of each individual page. The text within the title tag is displayed in the web browser’s title bar at the top of the user’s window. This tag is also used by Googlebot to determine the content of the page. Although the title tag is not the only element used by Google’s rank calculations, it plays a major role in search engine optimization. Web page titles should be different for all pages across the domain.  A common method used to reduce title duplication is to create web page titles using unique introduction text and appending the website business name.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the content inserted within link tags. Using terms in anchor tags like “click here” or “read this link” make it difficult for Googlebot to detect the relevant keyword phrases for important links on the web page. If generic phrases are used, Google is unable to detect the relevancy of a website for certain keyword phrases. When setting up links on your site, focus on the keyword terms that match with the website’s content. Use these phrases as anchor text for better optimization. Additionally, Google’s guideline’s state that no more than 100 links should be present on a web page.

Header Tags

Header tags are web page elements such as “h1” that provide a bold block of large text. The header tags are used by Google’s algorithm to detect the main focus of individual web pages within the domain. While a title tag is used as an indication of overall website purpose, the header tag is specific to the page.  For instance, if the website’s purpose is “dog food,” an example of a web page header tag text is “organic dog food comparisons.”  Only one “h1” tag should be present on each page.

Unique, Compelling Content

Being added to Google’s index is easy; maintaining a high index rank is where the real work begins. Google’s mission is to provide the best user experience for its clients. Search engine users are Google’s main customers, and Googlebot is designed to find the best web pages for a customer’s query. Creating unique content that focuses on the website’s business is the best way to increase index rank. Plagiarized material devalues the site and lowers the index rank. For repeat offenders, Google removes the domain from its search results entirely … so be sure to avoid any duplicate content issues.

Although variations in index rank are typical, these five tips help optimize your website while complying with Google’s guidelines. Continue to add unique content to the site, and Google will crawl the pages more frequently. Google guidelines state that webmasters should focus on designing a website with the reader in mind. Continue optimization on the website with honest practices, and the domain’s index rank will steadily climb.