SEO For Google

This article is part three of a four part series on optimizing your website for thethe three major search engines. Part one, titled "SEOFor MSN" covered optimizing your website to rank highly on MSN, while part two,titled "SEOFor Yahoo!" covered optimizing your website to rank on Yahoo!. In this articlewe will cover optimizing your website for Google.

I likely don't even need to mention that Google is currently the largest of all thesearch engines with ComScore Media estimating this giant to be responsible for 42.7%of all online searches in March of 2006. For this reason people tend to view Googleas the engine to rank on. While this point is debatable (let's rememberthat there's still 57.3% of searches that aren't done on Google) it's definitely animportant engine to rank on. So how is it done?

The Factors

To optimize and rank highly on Google, as with any of the major engines, specificareas need to be addressed. On Google the most important of these factors are:

• Backlinks
• Age
• Content
• How it fares in the results

Backlinks

More than on either Yahoo! or MSN backlinks are key to attaining top rankings on Google.More importantly, Google's methods for calculating the weight of backlinks is verydifferent than either of the other two engines. Once upon a time backlink acquisitionwas mainly a numbers game. If you had more links you had higher rankings, it was basicallyas simple as that. Today however Google has an algorithm inside their algorithm fordetermining which links are more valuable than others. This algorithm has a numberof factors itself, however there are some that are more important than others. Theykey factors that determine the value of a link in regards to its contributions to theranking of your site are:

• The age of the links - Like domains, links gain weight with age. The longeryour links have been on a web page the higher their value. Basically this means thatyour link building efforts today aren't going to pay off for a number of months.The weight seems to age gradually. In a month your link will hold partial weight,in two months it'll hold a bit more and so on. Links hold the majority of their weightafter about 5 to 6 months.
• The location of the link - The physical location of your link on the pageis an indicator to Google of it's value. A link buried in the footer of a page willhold virtually no weight whereas a link near the top (i.e. where a visitor is likelyto see it) will hold much more. Another location factor is how this link is situatedrelative to the content around it. A link that is located within content holds moreweight than a link in a typical link-page or directory format with a title and description.The inline nature of the aforementioned location indicates that the link itself ismore natural.
• The anchor text and formatting - The linking text used is obviously important.If you are targeting a phrase such as "seo firms" then using these two keywords inthe anchor text is going to attach relevancy between your site and these keywords.Be careful though, building a thousand links using all the same anchor text is goingto look suspicious. Vary your anchor text, perhaps include other keywords and you'llfind your efforts rewarded. The formatting of the link is also relevant. A link thatuses bold, italics, etc. is obviously meant to be seen by a visitor and is thus morehighly regarded by Google.
• Relevancy - The relevancy of the site linking to you is of key importance.Getting a link on a health site if you're an SEO firm is going to hold little weightwhereas a link from an SEO resource site will be much more valuable.
• PageRank - While the value of PageRank is arguably dropping when one isconsidering it's importance in link building it is still a factor. A link from aPageRank 5 page is worth substantially more than a link from a PageRank 2 page.

Age

In a patent application from back in 2004 Google told SEO firms (and anyone else forthat matter) that age was an important factor. Google has since become a domain nameregistrar which gives them access to whois data and thus they can clearly see the ageof a domain, who it is registered to, where it is hosted, etc. The older your domainis the more legitimate Google sees it and thus the more likely they are to rank it.Additionally, domains that are registered for longer periods of time are also seenas more legitimate and thus will tend to rank higher.

Content

Google is more picky than either Yahoo! or MSN when it comes to content. While thephrase, "content is king," may be overused it is still relevant. The more content youhave on your site the more likely someone is to find what they're looking for whenthey get there. Thus, the more content you have on your site the more likely Googleis to believe a searcher will find what they're looking for there. This does not meanthat you should grab every bit of content you can find and build a 500,000 page siteabout potatoes. The content needs to be relevant and preferably well written. Whilea search engine spider may not be able to tell if your content is truly well writtenit must appeal to a human visitor. The reason for this will be made more clear below.

A blog is a good option for the easy addition of relevant content provided that youcan dedicate the time (generally only a few minutes per day) to post some new and interestinginformation on your industry.

Keyword density is not as large a factor on Google as on Yahoo! or MSN however itis a factor and in the SEO "game" any factor that holds weight needs to be taken intoconsideration in all but the least competitive areas. While a site targeting a phrasesuch as "bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere" can afford weakness in some ofthe areas most of us cannot. As noted in the articles on MSN and Yahoo! it would beunwise for me to specify an optimal keyword density here as the optimal levels varyby site type, topic, and fluctuate with the algorithm updates. Keyword densities needto be reanalyzed approximately monthly or any time an update is noted.

How it fares in the results

How your website fares in the results is a growing factor and will only continue togain importance as time passes. If your website appears in the results for a specificphrase yet no one click on is your website will drop out of the rankings. Arguablyworse, if your website is clicked however after a few seconds Google detects that thesearcher has returned to the results to find a new site your site will drop. It isfor this reason that it is important to insure that the titles you write for your websiteare both search engine and human friendly. You want Google to rank it highly and youalso need humans to click it or Google won't rank it highly (circular logic I knowbut valid nonetheless).

You also need to make sure that what people see when they first land on your pageeither is the information they are looking for or alternatively, clearly indicateswhere that information can be found. This point may seem obvious simply from a usabilitystandpoint however the number of sites out there that violate this basic principleis vast. As part of your SEO efforts you will want to take a look at your site froma user's standpoint or better yet, watch real users navigate it to see if they canfind what they're looking for quickly. You have about 3 seconds to get a visitor'sattention so make sure that your visitor can find what they want in that time. Youmay need to hire experienced web designers to bring your website up to speed howeverthe cost of this is lower than the cost of losing rankings and business due to poordesign and the falling rankings that will follow.

Conclusion

Google has the most sophisticated algorithm of the three major engines and must betreated as such. Tricks rarely work and when they do they tend to work only for a shortperiod of time. Build a strong site with lots of quality content that is easily navigatedand will appeal to your human visitors and you're off to a good start. Optimize yourkeyword densities and secure quality links to your site and while it may take a bitof time to get past the aging delays, you will succeed on Google.

Recommended Resources

Total OptimizerPro - A keyword density and backlink analysis tool. This tool breaks down a varietyof onsite and offsite factors giving you a full snapshot of how the top 10 got theirpositions.
Google Press Releases - Read the latest pressreleases from Google. This may not give you the algorithm but it will tell you the directionthey're going. Understand this and you'll be better equipped to deal with changes down theroad.
Matt Cutts Blog - Read this blog from Googlesoftware engineer Matt Cutts. Obviously he's not about to give you the algorithm (or he wouldn'tbe a Google engineer would he?) but he does give great advice and the occasional head's upon updates. He allows comments on his blog and many of them are useful as well.

About The Author
Dave Davies is the owner and CEO of Beanstalk SearchEngine Positioning, Inc