GOOGLE SEO

Google SEO is a branch of SEO that is specifically focused around getting your page to rank well in the Google search engine.

This page focusses on Google SEO and will outline some of the most important factors in ensuring that your website ranks well in Google.

BACKGROUND TO GOOGLE SEO

Google is the most prominent and widely used search engine in the world today. When conducting an SEO campaign the first place that all industry experts will look to is how well a website is performing in the Google search results for particular terms.

There are allegedly over 200 SEO factors that Google currently uses to rank pages in it's search results. We use the term allegedly because nobody outside of Google knows for sure exactly what constitutes the algorithm that they use to generate their search results. What makes Google SEO even more complex is that the algorithm that they use is constantly evolving and therefore what may be true one day will not neccessarily be true next week, next month or next year.

HOW DO I OPTIMISE MY WEBSITE FOR GOOGLE?

As stated above nobody knows for sure the exact algorithm that Google uses in order to generate it's search results. All that industry experts can do is speculate as to elements of this algorithm given patterns that they have noticed in the past.

Below you will find a number of factors that have been identified by industry experts that have been shown to have an affect on search engine results:

Key: Confirmed by Google Patents

INTERNAL GOOGLE SEO FACTORS

• Keywords in URL - prominence important, first word most important, second word second most important etc.
• Keywords in domain name - same rules as above
• Keywords in title tag - prominence important, 10 - 60 characters, no special characters
• Keywords in description meta tag - less than 200 characters, not relied upon for Google SEO but still important
• Keywords in keyword meta tag - maximum of 10 words, every word must appear on the page somewhere otherwise you will be penalised, reportedly low relevance for Google SEO
• Total keyword density - the number of keywords that you should have within your text should be between 5%-20% - some SEO's have reported topic sensitivity i.e. the threshold % will change dependant on the topic area
• Individual keyword density - the frequency for any individual keyword should be between 1-6%
• Keywords in title tags - keywords should appear in all heading tags, but not be abused
• Keyword fonts and styles - keywords with bold, italic or in larger size are given more prominence by Google
• Keyword phrase order - Google likes you to use multiple variations of the same keyword
• Keyword prominence - keywords that are mentioned near to the beginning of a page are given more prominence
• Keywords in alt text - keywords should be mentioned in alt text for images, but be careful of spamming
• Keywords in internal links - Google uses anchor text in links as an indication of the topic matter of the page that is being linked to
• Website depth - all pages should be accessible from the homepage in no more than three clicks
• Outbound links - should only be the high quality websites
• Outbound link anchor text - should be on topic and relevant
• Limit to links on a single page - you should try to limit the number of links on any one page to 100
• Domain extensions - .gov, .edu and .org websites are given greater prominence than others
• File size - smaller file sizes are preferred (preferably less than 100KB)
• Hyphens - hyphens should be used in domains and urls to indicate a space, should be limited to 4
• Freshness of content - Google likes fresh content and pages on your website where relevant
• Themes - a consistant page theme should be maintained throughout your website
• Url length - try to restrict to under 100 characters
• Site age - Google prefers domains that have been registered for long periods
• Duplicate content - Google will penalise any websites that are found to have duplicate content

EXTERNAL GOOGLE SEO FACTORS

• Google PageRank - the higher your page rank score the more potential your website will have for Google SEO
• Total inbound links - the more links to your website the better your Google SEO will be
• Quality of inbound links - the higher the quality of links coming into your website the better your Google SEO will be
• Anchor text of inbound links - kewords should be included in the anchor text of inbound links
• Age of inbound link - the older the domain the better
• Number of links on incoming link page - the lower the number of links the better
• Subject matter - the more relevant the page that is linking to you is the better
• Respected directories - a listing on respected directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo can give your website a real boost in terms of Google SEO
• On site user behaviour - the more times your page is viewed, the longer people stay on there and the more your website is bookmarked the better in will perform in terms of Google SEO

If you would like Devoted Domains to help you with Google SEO then please contact us.