What to Do - and NOT to Do - as You Compete for Google Rankings
By Susan Flansburg
I just returned from a conference in Arizona. It was good to see old friends, and great to learn - and be reminded of - some key things. Here’s one of the most important:
SEO is worth working on, every single time you update your website. But watch out.
First, Search Engine Optimization helps Google locate your site when relevant search terms are typed into the search bar. Let’s say you have a hat shop in downtown Rock Island. If you optimize those words - hat shop downtown Rock Island - you’ll help Google locate you for that query.
How?
By simply including certain specific words in your site.
You can treat the words differently in your text for more impact. Bolding or italicizing the words helps Google see them as different - and more important - than the rest of the text.
But don’t do it too often! If you do anything too much - bolding, italicizing, CAPITALIZING, increasing font size, or including the words too often - Google will assume you are trying to game the system.
Google penalizes websites for many such missteps.
Take the practice of “keyword stuffing.” Once used to help boost ratings, keyword stuffing - in which web pages were filled with nothing but “hat shop” (for example) - is now penalized heavily.
Serving your website visitors
Keyword stuffing never served website visitors, of course. It looked awful and offered no value.
It was a tactic that seemed to be a silver bullet for high ratings. Even though stuffed sites appeared high on searches for a while - till Google caught on - those sites never did well with visitors. Because web visitors want clear, simple, fast, easy-to-navigate information.
That’s the only formula that works.
Within that formula, there are many ways to optimize your site successfully (although the Google algorithm changes faster than I can type).
Creating readable, understandable text with appropriate and useful links to other site pages is critical. So is simple and clear and easy-to-use design.
What do you need to succeed?
A clear understanding of your site visitor, for one. And a good communications partner, for another.
Together, we’ll create pages that are not only clear to Google, they’ll be clear - and helpful - for the very visitor you want to reach.