Google Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Online search engine rankings through successful web page optimization can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, Yahoo and MSN combined market value is still less than Google. Optimization techniques customized for Google page rank optimization is a higher priority and makes achieving top rankings in Google much more important.

This article reviews How to Optimize for Google and we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
Make sure targets are achievable. If the wrong keywords are selected, the entire optimization experience essentially is a waste. Make sure keywords are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for the industry. Phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified web site traffic.

Using the hotel industry for example, targeting the word "hotel" would make very little sense but by narrowing keyword or phrase selection down to "Toronto ON hotel" you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
There are many on-site factors that play a role in search engine rankings through page optimization. Here are a number of those factors and what you can do to increase success rate. Remember to always consult a professional search engine marketing firm or company when success depends on increasing web site traffic.

Title Tag
The title tag plays one of the most important roles in search results on Google, and is almost always the heading Google chooses for each of its listings. Placement of target phrases is best used near the start of the tag and repeated again in the middle or near the end. Three uses of target phrases may be helpful in some instances, for instance during page optimization could be targeting several areas of page topic. For best results each page on web sites should have a totally unique title tag.

Target marketing is also important to remember since Google will use the title for the main heading for listings, you will want to keep keyword phrases attractive to potential searchers. Try to also add a call to action, or other wording to help make listings appear attractive to searchers.

To help illustrate the fact Google uses title tag into consideration, simply do a search for a target phrase and take a look at the titles of the top 10. Try to search for a rather broad term like "hotel" and see all Top 10 listings have the main keyword in the title tag, and 6/10 contain the first word. A quick scan shows the entire top 30 either have the word hotel, or hotels in title tag.

The most important optimization technique on a website, make sure all title tags are relevant, unique, and contain target phrase for each page.

Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag is still occasionally used by Google in the description which appears in the search results themselves. While this used to be a more common practice Google tends to use Meta Tag Description most often on sites with very limited content, or those which are flash based.

The Meta Description tag still has an impact on search rankings. When using this tag is to keep description short and sweet with target phrases close to the start and not repeated more than 3 times. Like the title tag, each page on sites should have its own unique description tag.

Meta Keyword Tag
Google does considers Keyword tag significantly like in past, and won't influence rankings. There is some speculation whether a spammy keyword tag can however, have a negative effect on Google rankings. If you do utilize a keyword Meta tag for the smaller engines, keep it clean and play it safe.

Density
Keyword density plays a role in overall rankings; however, it is not simple as it once was. There was a magic number and when used could almost guarantee top rankings. Now search engine optimization is becoming a science and web crawlers are more sophisticated and can detect more phrases and grammer problems. Black hat techniques did produce top ranking results in past by writing articles to trick search engines.

This is no longer the case. Today the ideal density varies from industry to industry, phrase to phrase. To find out what density you should aim for, take the top 10 or 20 search results and see what percentage those sites are using. In most cases you will find the majority of these sites have a very similar density to one another, and this average density is a good estimation of what you should aim for.

Body Text and Keyword Placement
The location of relevant text on sites will help establish the overall importance of target phrases. While you do not want to overwhelm the engines and site visitors with a bombardment of target phrases at the top of the page, try to sprinkle in some instances close to the top of the page as possible.

Synonyms
Be sure to include various synonyms for target phrases within body text on your site. Google will use these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page for main target phrases, which in turn can improve odds.

To find possible synonyms you can use a thesaurus, but the best way is to search Google itself and see exactly what they consider to be similar. Simply search in Google for target phrases preceded with a tilde, like "~hotels". Next scan through the search results for any text Google has bolded. These are all words Google considers to be related. Using the "~hotels" example Google brings up phrases such like 'travel', 'tourism', 'accommodation', as in various hotel chain names such like 'Hilton Hotels'.

Keywords in Domain
There is still some speculation if having a target phrase as part of top level domain (TLD) is of use to search rankings. From my experience, yes, there is value here, although, not like several years ago.

If you are starting in the online world and are contemplating which domain to go for, consider one with target phrases, assuming both relevancy to your business name, and uses no more than a single hyphen. While multiple hyphens in a domain can be successful, they are very common with highly spammy websites, so it is best to not take these routes if possible.

While having a keyword located within domain name can provide some ranking juice, I would not suggest heading out and doing a domain swap. In most cases you would be better off working on existing sites than starting from scratch with a new domain.

Keywords in page specific URL
Using keywords for specific page URL's can also help add a little bit of value to your site, providing you use them responsibly. Consider using a keyword as a directory name and as part of a file name where it naturally makes sense to do so. If you have a website which focuses on tourism and includes local hotel listings, you may want to consider the following structure for pages on the Hilton:

MyTourismSite.com/Victoria/Accommodations/Hotels/Hilton.html

Heading Tags
Placement of target phrases within heading tags helps to establish the importance of those given phrases. Do not over do it, or abuse it. Only place target phrases within a heading tag if it makes sense to do so, and don't flood a page with numerous tags. Heading tags are not as critical as they once were, but still a good contribution to a well optimized page.

Link Anchor text
This is the actual text you clíck on as part of a link. When full or partial target phrases are used within text links they help pass on some value to the linked page for those phrases. This is also true when considering surrounding text. When the content around the link is also relevant, the link holds slightly more value.

While a link simply states "clíck here" or "www.domainname.com" does have its place, they provide considerably less value than a link which uses "discount hotels" as its anchor.

Image Alt Text
While image alt text still plays a minor role, its biggest part is within the use of image based navigation. If you have an image linked to another page, the alt text will be attributed much the same way as standard link anchor text is.

Image Alt text should always be short and to the point and should accurately describe either the image itself, or the page the image is linking to. Do not use alt tags as a place to stuff keywords.

Inline Links
Links which are found mid sentence or mid paragraph as opposed to a simple listing of links as found in a menu or possibly on a sitemap. Links found mid paragraph tend to pass on a little more value from the surrounding text and can provide more relevance to the linked page.

Site Navigation
It is absolutely imperative for websites be fully spiderable by the search engines. This may seem obvious, but often webmasters overlook Google's ability to crawl a website. Google has become very advanced in what links it can follow and how it can spider a website, but there are still some methods which can cause significant roadblocks.

- Flash: One of the most commonly made mistakes is the use of flash. If flash is used as a sole means of site navigation then you can count on Google not viewing internal pages, and having a significant disadvantage in terms of site rankings.

- Java Script / DHTML: These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be spidered by Google, however, this is not always the case. If your site utilizes any kind of fancy navigation and you are wondering why Google has not indexed internal pages, check out Google's Cached Text version of web pages. If you do not see any text links, then navigation may be invisible to Google.

- Images: Image based navigation has been safe for many years now, but if your site uses this form of navigation it is essential to have brief, relevant alt text on all buttons. This alt text will act much like standard anchor text for text based links. This is not only for the purpose of search ranking value, but take a look at Google's cached text version of your page. If you have image based links which do not have alt text, those links do not appear. This doesn't mean Google won't follow them, but for anyone viewing your site on a text based browser, your links will be invisible to them.

URL Structure
Avoid long elaborate URL's with extraneous characters. While Google has reached a point where they can index massive URL strings, it is best to avoid them if at all possible. For dynamic sites consider utilizing mod rewrites to significantly clean up the URL to not only make it more search engine friendly, but more user friendly as well.

MyTourismSite.com/?locid="victoria"&catid="accommodations"&type="hotel"&comp="hilton"
stands a better chance if cleaned up to read:
MyTourismSite.com/victoria/accommodations/hotels/hilton.htm

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