Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Posted in Blogging, Internet Marketing | 14 comments

One of the best way to gain traffic is to have your site search-able in some Search Engine and one of them is Google. Your site should have a more efficient and specific keywords or target keywords that if type at Google search bar, your site may appear on the first page, this is called by bloggers page rank. Its part of the optimization process to have a better and well-traffic site/blog.

Google releases a Search Engine Optimization Guide somewhere around mid November 2008. Here whats it says.

• Create unique and accurate page title. Choose a brief but effectively describe the page content.
• Apply different title tag for each page. The title tag should be within the tag.
• Make use of the “description” Meta tag. It should be the summery of the page content.
• Improve the structure of URLs. Use descriptive words instead of numbers.
• Make site easier to navigate. Create an XML sitemap file to make it easier for Google to discover the pages.
• Offer quality content and services. Write simple, easy to read articles. Have an organized and unique content. Write for users not search engines.
• Write better anchor text. Write short but descriptive text so that users understand where it links.
• Use heading tags appropriately.
• Optimize the use of images. Have a distinct file name and “alt” attribute for all images.
• Make effective use of robots.txt. Control pages crawled by search engine. Certain pages of site might not be useful to users.
• Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links. Linking sites that Google considers spammy can affect the site reputation.
• Promote website the right ways. Blog about new content or services. Use offline promotion. Add business to Google’s Local Business Center. Make use of social media sites. Communicate with sites that share similar interest.
• Make use of free webmaster tools, example Google’s Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics.

Basically it’s actually making your site reachable and understandable by Google. This can be done better when using Google free tools.

Most of the above mention is common guide of SEO. If you’re new to SEO and would like to improve your blog PR, then you should go through it. As for those that familiar with SEO and already implement most of the steps, it’s good to go through it too. There are many SEO steps that are well explained. I’m sure most of us know that it must be done this way buy do not know the reason of doing so.