SEO: How To Make Your Website “Google-Friendly”

Almost 75% of all search engine traffic comes from Google. It’s important that you play by their SEO rules to get your website ranked and indexed properly. Google looks for two important things to qualify a site: content and relevance.

We’d all be richer than Bill Gates if we could figure out how to make a website appear number one in Google, but there are several basic SEO rules that that give your website a fighting chance.

Searchable and Unique Page Titles
The page title is the first thing Google reads. Make sure each of your pages has a different title that begins with a keyword related to your business. For example, a website for a home staging consultant with a homepage title of “Susan’s Designs in Tampa” tells Google nothing about what the business does. A good title would read, “Real estate staging in Tampa with Susan’s Interior Designs.”

HINT: Put yourself in the mind of a customer that might be looking for you. What words would they type into Google to find the services you provide? Write down 5 or 10 of these search terms or phrases and use them throughout different titles and pages in your site. They are your KEYWORDS.

Keyword-Rich Headings
After the page title, the next bit of web page text Google typically reads is the heading of the first paragraph. Most inexperienced web writers would write something like “About Susan’s Designs” as the first paragraph or topic heading. The more Google Friendly text should read “Real estate staging in Tampa for more than 15 years.” This way Google is beginning to understand that this page must be all about real-estate staging in Tampa (after reading the page title and first paragraph).

Good Keywords in the Copy
Google reads your page looking for validation of the first two instances of your keywords (Page Title and Heading). Make sure you include the same keyword or key phrase a couple of more times in the page especially in the first paragraph. Try, “I have been doing real estate staging in Tampa since 1995.” Bingo… Now Google correctly assumes what this page is about and is more likely to index it properly.

Be sure to create a different page title on every page. The easiest way is to pull from your list of keywords and use a different one to start the title of each page. If you can’t control your page title, be sure to ask your Webmaster to do it for you.

Links
Equally important as titles and keywords are the relevant “inbound links” (other websites that link to yours). The more relevant inbound links that point to your site, the better your site will get indexed by Google. For example, you can create a separate blog that talks about trends in your industry and links to your website. Another good source of an inbound link can come from a listing in a directory or through membership in a professional association.

So that’s a basic overview on how to make your site Google-compliant. Keep in mind that Organic SEO takes some work, and more importantly, some time to work. If you want to pay your way to the top, you might think about Paid Search Advertising.

For a free SEO review of your website, contact Tom Casale or Bill Kamper at info@simplifiedsolutions.biz or call 312-886-7669.