50 ways to make google love your website

7/29/2019 50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Website

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*50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Website*

Steve Johnston & Liam McGee, Random House

Business Books 2010

1. Always refer to the Tripod of Love: Visibility,

Relevance and Reputation when working to

improve Google's love for your website. (see

section 2.9).

2. Admit you don't really know what your users wantand commit yourself to finding out by doing

research into how they express themselves on

Google. (see section 3.1).

3. Think deep, think laterally and take your time

when investigating the ways users search for the

stuff on your website (see section 3.2.).

4. Get closer to what Google knows about the

words in your marketplace. It knows a lot and will

give it up if you ask it the right questions. (see

section 3.4.).

5. Chunk and repeat when writing for users andGoogle. (see section 3.5).

6. Create the quality content that your users want

and need to find. This works for Google too. (see

section 3.6.).


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7. Always remember that the long tail exists - even if

you can't see it - so err on the side of more content.

(see section 3.7.).

8. Be prepared to travel far down the long tail of

search because there are profitable surprises in the

patterns and themes you'll find there. (see section

3.8.1.).

9. Find the money to buy good quality search termdata. It will be worth it. (see section 3.8.1.).

10. Build your website's information architecture

from a detailed taxonomy of demand. (see section

3.8.3.).

11. Your majority shareholder/stakeholder needs tounderstand the importance of Google and how

online excellence builds Reputation. Se start talking

to them today.

12. Do not assume that the existence of your

website is enough for other sites to link to it. Take a

hard look at your market and commit to being betteronline than the rest of it. (see section 4.1.1.).

13. Spend time, not money, encouraging the world

to talk about you online. People talking about your

website is better than having a big marketing

budget. (see section 4.1.2.).


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14. Make sure your URL's are not a mess of

duplicates that dilute the power of links, becauseReputation links are to URL's, not to pages. (see

section 4.1.3.).

15. If in doubt about what your Reputation should

look like, go back to basics, be courageous, and

build a real reputation around who you are and

what you do. (see section 4.2.).

16. Be prepared to create content worthy of a

destination website - deeper, richer, more complete,

and simply better than your competitors - if you

want the links a destination deserves (see section

4.2.1.).

17. Develop tactical Reputation (link bait) content as

long as it's funny or controversial or insightful or

quirky genuinely fascinating, but most of all

Relevant! (see section 4.2.2.).

18. Get the word out about your wonderful website

by participating in the social media conversationsthat are relevant to it. Be brave, honest and helpful,

and avoid direct sales! (see section 4.2.3.).

19. Online status updates and social groups are

powerful ways of spreading the word about your

site, so use them regularly and intelligently. This


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means sanity-checking their likely Relevance and

making sure their frequency is appropriate for the

behaviors in your market. (see section 4.2.3.).

20. Share your knowledge an experience, become

an expert in your sector, do not waffle and divert.

Stay focused and always be useful and relevant,

the rest will take care of itself. (see section 4.2.3.).

21. Don't be afraid to link to the sites that you loveand that may be useful to your visitors. Being really

useful is a great way to acquire Reputation. (see

section 4.2.5.).

22. Suggest to your visitors that they link to you if

they find your website useful. Make it easy for them

with snippets of HTML. (see section 4.3.).

23. Submit your website for inclusion in the Open

Directory Project and buy your standard entry in the

Yahoo Directory. (see section 4.3.4.).

24. FInd the authority sites in your sector and

develop strategies to make a link from them to youirresistible. All sectors have their pockets of

powerful and relevant authority; find them and get

planning. (see section 4.3.4.).

25. When putting the technical building blocks of

your website together apply Web Standards.


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Google loves Web Standards.

26. Valid and fast-loading HTML is a quality signalto Google, so be vigilant to what's in the source

code, even if you've never looked there before. (see

section 5.1.).

27. Emphasize the phrases and sentences that are

important on your website, by the careful use of

italics and emboldening. (see section 5.1.1.).

28. Present headed paragraphs with effective

semantic markup using heading and paragraph

tags. And nest headings at different levels to

identify the structure of longer pieces of content.

(see section 5.1.2.).

29. Order items in your page that are lists of

phrases, words, or even sentences in list tags.

Include your navigation items as lists. (see section

5.1.2.).

30. Only use blockquotes and table tags for quotes

and tabular data respectively, not for layout. (seesection 5.1.2.).

31. Divide the page content into relevant chunks or

blocks by using division tags. This helps segregate

the important from the unimportant content. (see

section 5.1.3.).


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32. Spend five minutes crafting a better title tag for

a page. Title tags are remarkably importantbecause they also feature as the link in Google's

results pages. (see section 5.1.4.).

33. Increase the click-through rate of your pages

when they appear in Google's results by writing

highly complementary and compelling descriptions

to accompany your titles. (see section 5.1.4.).

34. Group your pages by using internal links so that

they reflect the patterns of Relevance on your site.


35. Use your own search result pages to group

unlinked-to but otherwise relevant content fromacross your website. (see section 5.1.5.).

36. Use a Google SiteMap feed to tell Google

automatically where all your URL's can be found

and which are the most important. (see section

5.1.5.).

37. Tell Google where your business is based,

through the Google Local Business Center and/or

the geotargeting option in Google Webmaster

Tools. (see section 5.1.6.).

38 . Avoid hiding rich content in proprietary


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applications, such as PDF's, Flash etc. and in

databases that cannot be queried by Google. By all

means use them, but allow Google-friendlyversions, such as video transcripts. (see section

5.1.7.).

39. Minimise the number of web domains from

which you operate, because Google loves each on

its own merits and Reputation can be diluted if you

have more than one. (see section 5.2.1.).

40. Target international markets only after

composing a balanced view that combines your

existing Reputation, your ability to acquire country-

level domains, and your appetite for local

Reputation-development. There is no one way to

acquire Google's international love, and this is oneof the most complex issues you'll have to deal with.


41. At all costs avoid the duplication of content at

multiple URL's across your site. And if you really

can't avoid it, manage it through the use of

canonical tag. Think of each piece of conent ashaving a home URL that all roads must lead to.


42. When you move your content from one URL to

another, tell Google by configuring a permanent

redirect from the old URL to the new one. (see


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section 5.2.4.).

43. Organize and manage the patterns of yourinternal links, so that your Reputation flows to the

important URL's (this may be the same as or

different from Way 34, depending on your site's

needs). (see section 5.2.5.).

44. Organize and carefully select the words chosen

for your internal links. Remember anchor text isimmensely powerful, even within your own site.


45. Create URL's that describe the content that is

found at them. Relevant vocabulary in an URL

translates to perfect anchor text when others use it

in links. (see section 5.2.7.).

46. Use web analytics tools such as Google

Analytics, to measure the natural search visits you

get from Google that do not include the name of

brand of your business. There are generic visits

and they demonstrate best how Google love is

growing. (see section 6.1.).

47. Measure the length of the tail in the natural

search visits of your analytics before and after you

make changes. An increase in the number of

different search expressions delivering visits are a

simple indication of how you are doing. (see section


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6.1.1.).

48. Become a fanatical follower of everythingGoogle publishes for Webmasters by visiting

Google Webmaster central every week, and check

the reports for your domain in Google Webmaster

Tools every day.

49. When Google appears to have fallen out of love

with your site, don't panic! Carefully analyze therecent changes you have made and if there is

insufficient cause within them, sit tight and be

patient. It usually turns out to be a passing mood.

50. The principles of Google's love are unlikely to

change significantly in the future. So, if in doubt

about how to proceed, remember the Tripod of Loveand ask yourself, 'What would Google do?'.

50 ways to make google love your website

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