There are lots of things related to Search Engine Optimisation to get good rankings on Google. But sometimes it’s easy to forget the basics. Here are 3 ways very basic ways to ensure your website is in Google’s good books.
1. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools.
This will enable you or your website techy to see what Google sees on your website. Why do this? Well using webmaster tools allows you to identify broken links, broken pages but more importantly tell Google what it should index to increase your visibility in the search results.
I worked with a client who had a website which was coming up as “Warning, do not view this page” in the Google search link to their site. By using webmaster tools, it was identified that there was a vulnerability with their CMS software from not updating it. I could then use Google webmaster tools to check and verify all of the links and connections of the site with Google’s “Goggles” so to speak. I was even then, via the webmaster tool console, able to contact a Google admin to review the site after I had patched the CMS software.
I also use Google webmaster tools to ensure Google uses the primary link achaeus.com.au opposed to www.achaeus.com.au. What’s the difference? I’ll write up a blog post about that next week.
2. Use relevant descriptive titles for your page headlines, page names and Heading (H1,H2 etc) tags.
It’s fairly basic in terms of making sure Google gets what it wants from your website. It’s all about consistency. If you have a title of a page about your company’s services with the name untitled.htm instead of services.htm then page is less relevant than another site. This applies to page titles and headline titles.
Here is an example of your site structure should look like for a page called Company Services:
Page name: “services.htm” (depending on if you’re using html site, could be .php, .asp etc)
Page title: “Company Services - ABC Company” (Have the name of your page before your company name in the page title)
Headline name: “Company Services” (Make sure its a H heading tag instead just paragraph made bold and bigger)
These seem very basic, but it can be so easily to just put aside for “next time”.
3. Don’t make your site a “dead end”.
Whilst it’s great to get heaps of relevant sites linking to you, it’s also good practice to link to other sites. The web is about sharing information, and if you don’t want to engage and share then the web doesn’t want to know about you. From a Google point of view, they can see if you are a “dead end”. And like driving through the back streets of the City, nobody likes trying to navigate through roads dominated by signs with “No through road” on them.
If there is anything you reference, whether it be venue, event, or something that may not be in your audience’s vocab, help them out. If you’re scared they won’t come back, make the link appear in a new window. Your techy will know how to do this. Otherwise people will appreciate showing them the way, and they too will keep you on their “Good Books”.
If you want to take this further and enter the world of Search Engine Optimisation, then sign up for the weekly newsletter at SiteProNews, I’ve been on their mailing list for over 6 years.
