Updated in 2014, Google’s Quality Guidelines for webmasters spells out some new details that all website owner’s should keep in mind.
In a nutshell, Google wants quality, relevant, unique, mobile-optimized content. The content that appears highest in the search results will be those that Google deems are the most relevant for a user’s query. The key is what Google deems most relevant and how a business owner’s website can make it into the pool that Google will select from to show for each unique query.
With Google showing results that are mobile-location determined specific, based on the user’s current location, and based on historical data of a user’s search history; relevancy simply cannot be determined by the keywords or for that matter even content on your website that you control. There is simply no way, based on the current Google parameters, to consistently garner top organic placement with some many variables being determined by Google’s file on the end user.
However, Google has still provided insight into what it considers important for a website owner to do on their end so that a website can even be included in the results that will be “racked and stacked” based on the individual users needs. These items are hugely important to embrace if your website is going to be a player in the way Google now delivers search results.
Here are some of my top tips for website owners to follow:
1. Make sure you craft your message for relevancy to users not search engines.
2. Be transparent in all you do; what you sell, who you are, what you do with user information; where you are located, and so forth.
3. Don’t use tactics that you may find difficult to explain to others or that may degrade over time in an effort to simply garner search engine placement now.
4. Focus on what makes your website, products or services unique and sell that uniqueness on each and every page.
5. Here’s the big list of don’ts – no automated content, no scraped content, no link schemes, no hidden text, no affiliate program sites will place without additional unique and value-driven content, no abuse of rich snippet coding. You’ll want to visit this page for more don’ts.
6. Google has even noted that website owner’s should pro-actively monitor for hacking now, as well as rogue installation of malicious code and excessive spam comments.
Additionally Google states that low quality pages are not okay, hiding content with CSS or JavaScript is not acceptable and will now be filtered out algorithmically, as well as inclusion of about us pages and contact us pages are now must have’s.
The key for website owners to consider, to even have the chance to appear for a user’s search, is to focus on the positive, unique, winning aspects of your business or product. Be transparent and honest about what you sell and do. Doing all of this then gives you the opportunity to be added to the mix of results that Google will then chose from to return a list of sites each unique user search query with a strong focus on what is “right” and “best” for the searcher.
If you need help with your content changes or a refocus strategy, I encourage you to contact my firm today at www.McCordWeb.com.