So, you have a website. But what good is it if people can’t find it? Last week, we promised you a post with some advice on how to help your website show up better in search engine results. Read on for the most important, and luckily simple and free things you can do to to improve your rankings.
To make your website show up higher in search results, it needs to be the best match for what the user has entered into the search box. Google has created an algorithm that they use to determine which web pages will best match that for which a user is searching. While no one knows exactly what that algorithm is (it’s kind of like the recipe for KFC’s chicken), SEM experts have been able to determine the components that weigh heavily in the algorithm. Here are four extremely important ones that you should keep in mind for your own website.
- Develop your keywords. Think about the words people might type in when searching for you. If you are a woodworker who specializes in custom cabinetry, you might have several people typing “custom wood cabinetry” when searching for you. That’s a key phrase you should consider using in your website, as Google’s “crawlers” will then index your site as one to bring up when people search for custom wood cabinetry.
- Content is king. Once you have your keywords, you can develop content that reflects them. Doing so tells Google that your page is highly relevant to the user’s search, and will result in a higher ranking in search results for your website. Avoid overpopulating your page with too many keywords; Google will penalize you for this. Having good, relevant content on your website is the single most important thing you can do to improve your rankings.
- Put keywords in your URL, Title, and Headings. Google’s crawlers use the words that make up your URL, Title, and Headings to evaluate the content on your page. If the words in these reflect any of your keywords, it will improve your search rankings.
- Engage in a link campaign. The more good websites that link to your website, the better your rankings will be. Google sees these links as signs of your credibility and relevance.
Now that you know some of the most crucial components of achieving a better search ranking, you can begin implementing your own SEO strategy!
Comments
I understand your point about links after all this is a major underlying concept of the world wide web, however I've notice a trend among commercial websites that they don't include a links page. Maybe the idea is not to loose or confuse a potential customer or prevent comparisons with competitors. I have a links page but not sure what sites I should link to. What do you think?
Hi CTWoodWkr - Your instinct is correct that you don't want to give people a way to leave your website. Many people have what is called a Media Page, where there are links to relevant press releases, articles, etc. However, your focus in terms of SEO should be on inbound links - other sites linking to yours. For example, if Finewoodworking.com had a link on their website that went back to your website, that would be a good inbound link. That's one reason that CustomMade allows subscribers to post links on their profiles; those links should go back to their own website, providing a good inbound link.
Custommade.com, however, does not allow links to "count", so to speak, as they do not wish to bleed page rank (I understand but dislike this). The link counts only as a way to get to a subscriber's site. Confusing, I know. But not all inbound links "count" in google's eyes.
From wikipedia:
"nofollow is a value that can be assigned to the rel attribute of an HTML a element to instruct some search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results and preventing spamdexing from occurring."
Example:
Turner Custom Furniture
Even if this thread did allow links to count (which I'm fairly certain they don't) the above link wouldn't count because of the rel="nofollow" attribute.
Long story short: You can spend an awful lot of time building inbound links, and come to discover that many of them don't matter.
Yep, pain in the butt.
Concerning outbound links: They count a lot less than inbound links (that do count). But search engines like them - links are what the web is about. So, placing a few outbound links to sites that don't compete with yours, and properly targeting the page to open in a new window (so the user never actually leaves your site) is a good idea.
SEO is extraordinarily complicated and not easily surmised. I don't mean to lessen the impact of your post, I just thought I'd chime in with some albeit distressing, information. I spend a great deal of time studying SEO, and I'm still surprised, confused and frustrated. And yet I've had a lot of success.
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