Over the last couple decades, ecommerce website owners have been trying to get their sites on page one of search engine results. Initially, there were not many rules and it was basically the Wild West where you could do whatever you wanted without worrying about key words stuffing penalties or duplicate content penalties. The last two years have seen more drastic changes to Google’s Search Algorithm than ever—this article concentrates on Google, because Google gets about two-thirds of all web inquiries, but the techniques could apply to all search engines. With all the rules out there, and the confusion about what Google wants, I decided to let you know about 3 Simple Ways to have your site more appealing to Google.
First is the Title Tag section, which should be no longer than 70-75 characters. This is just a quick overview of easy optimization tactics; for more information about title tags check out our previous post about Basics of Search Engine Optimization. Google does not read titles past this length, and in fact if the title is too long, it can affect the speed in which the Google Bots crawl the site, leading to a low ranking. When separating key terms in the Title Tag, pipes are the best way; Google reads them the fastest, although commas are not horrible. Pipes look like this from the VisionCourse Homepage:
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While key terms of 3 or 4 words in length should be listed in the Title Tag, as shown above, they should be complete sentences in the next section.
Second is the Meta Description and the character limit is 150 characters. This extended length is because the terms should be worked into complete sentences; incomplete sentences cause Google to become suspicious of keyword stuffing and can actively push your site down in rankings. Working key terms from the Title Tag into the Meta Description is a great way to become an authority for a particular key term; however, without this last part, everything is moot.
Third, CONTENT IS KING! This exclamation has probably been heard more than once by those of you who have attended any webinars or seminars recently concerning SEO. Without getting too much into the history of Google Algorithm changes, recent changes have lowered the importance of many offsite anchor-linking campaigns. Too many people were buying low quality links just rank higher, even though their sites may not have had the best quality content for what the person using the search engine was looking for. This entry is a good example of how you want to optimize content. Repeat terms that are related to your products and/or services the website provides. Not only that, also bolding and italicizing certain terms DOES make a difference. High quality, original, and well-optimized content can make all the difference in the world. The only thing missing to make this a good example of content is an anchor-link, so here’s one. If you are wondering about how Google sees your site, we do offer a FREE SEO ANALYSIS. That link goes to our site and the words highlighted, as the link is an anchor-link for the term “Free SEO Analysis.”
So if you are wondering how to get Google to like your site more, or to get more traffic ask yourself 3 questions:
- “Is my Title Tag a list of terms I want to rank for?”
- “Is my Meta Description made up of complete sentences with key terms from my Title?”
- “Do I have original, optimized content that repeats important key terms related to my industry in an organic fashion?”
Let us do a FREE SEO ANALYSIS for your site!
