What 7 Things Everybody Needs to Know About Google Search Optimization

As one of the most visited websites around the globe, with over 12 billion searches sent through its engine per month and owning 67.5 percent of the U.S. search market, Google can play a huge role in the popularity of your own site. Whether it's business-related or you're just trying to establish yourself as a presence and brand online.

SEO may seem like magic to an outsider. It is a structured approach and measured practice of optimizing your pages (and website) to improve your find-ability factor in search engines. If done right you can get listed on top of the first page of results for your specific keywords. While nothing in life is really free, your listings that are shown in the organic, natural results will not ding your wallet each time a searcher clicks. (That's the model for paid advertising, like Google Adwords).

Here are 7 things that everybody should know about Google search optimization.

1. Google Is Always Evolving

Google is constantly changing and evolving at a high speed, and it has had a steady level of growth over the past decade with new software, patents, products, web properties, and corporate acquisitions accumulating over time.

"Among Google's goals: Improve the user experience by delivering relevant, fresh, quality content and, at the same time, crack down on those using questionable search engine optimization techniques to gain unjustified ranking position." - CIO.com

The index also changes and that alters operations. Due to these changes it's impossible to ever completely comprehend the Google algorithms or make any sort of permanent change to your site that will always comply with the standards that Google is keeping. Add to this the fact that Google's main business is paid advertising and naturally wants businesses and users to engage there.

2. Everybody Wants A Piece Of The Google Action

This might seem obvious. You know at the back of your mind that all of your competitors are also vying for that top spot on the search list.

"If your business has an active, well optimized and maintained website with high quality unique content, then you may find yourself a step ahead already." - SEJ

This isn't enough, however. If your company has no real online presence; has not built trust via quality links or has a random selection of social media profiles, blogs, and widgets that provide little value or tries to manipulate Google to try to acquire high positions unnaturally, you could be losing out. Your competitor may have already overtaken you, and web traffic is decreasing.

3. Quality Matters Most To Google

Believe it or not, one of the most important concepts that you must understand when it comes to Google is that their standards for the quality of content are very high.

Despite the millions of website operators who strive for better rankings within the search engine, the most important parties to Google are their (paid) users, which means that they want to provide content that satisfies and makes readers come back again and again.

4. Structure Your Data When You Can

We know that although not everything needs to be structured and organized into some specific schema, Google prefers structured data as much as possible as it's easier to analyze and requires less computing resources. Google responds by greatly increasing your chances for visibility and traffic. Especially when they know the best data to present to readers, whether it's a product listing, video, news or event announcement.

5. Don't Buy Links, Work For Them

It may be possible to build up the number of links back to your site by purchasing them in some way, but this is viewed as a negative behavior by Google.

The truth is that if you buy your links, then they aren't likely a good representative of how honest your content is. Google is cracking down on this behavior and give out penalties where they see it occurring. Even if you were not aware of it. You can earn links the hard way through great quality information and products that people want to see. It may then be shared naturally.

6. Get On Board With Google+

It hasn't appeared to be one of the most popular social media sites on the internet, but using Google+ does tend to have a correlation with search engine rankings. Your personal network will see it. Even if the use of this tool only provides a miniscule difference in the grand scheme of things, every little bit helps in your online presence building.

7. Get Moving

The content of your site is the most important aspect that Google wants you to focus on for SEO benefit. Rankings may and will come over time, but there are hundreds of factors to the Google algorithm. Content and links are critical, but so is the speed at which your website and pages operate.

Success or failure of your website is ultimately measured in visibility, traffic, stickiness (how long visitor stay and if/when they come back) your message and positioning, as well as conversions (sales). With so many moving parts, make sure your content is readily available and that your pages load fast. Improve your site speed and make users and Google happy in the process.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Before you add a second story to your house or construct a brand new home, be clear on where you are and what you want. For Google SEO, that means getting an SEO Audit.

Summer SEO News You Should Know About: HTTPS. Rich Snippets, More

Summer is coming to a close and with it the end of (yet) another memorable season in the world of SEO. When Matt Cutts, Google’s head of webspam, announced his three month sabbatical we all joked that no updates could possibly roll out without him at the helm.

In his absence we’ve heard rumors of a suspected Penguin update, encryption as a ranking signal, and the death of authorship. Here are some of the SEO tidbits you may have missed out on this summer.

HTTPS: Encryption for SEO

Summer SEO News You Should Know About: HTTPS. Rich Snippets, More image https Dollarphotoclub 67642635 300x300Security breaches on the web seem to be an everyday occurrence. Sites large and small are impacted by the nefarious activities of spammers and hackers. Increasing security measures on a site is imperative to protecting a company’s bottom line today, and of course the privacy of your customer’s information. Search engines have taken notice and want to provide a better experience online for their users. In August Google announced they will begin using website encryption, HTTPS, as a ranking signal giving preferential treatment to sites which encrypt data for their users. The change is estimated to effect less than 1% of global queries so far, but has web developers scrambling to make it.

Encryption has always been a best practice as it provides heightened security by encrypting a user’s session with an SSL Digital Certificate. For online banking and ecommerce sites encryption is common, but for other industries it’s less so. Implementation often involves expense and additional measures, which many companies have put off – until now.

A recent study shows that currently to date no ranking benefits were observed as a result of this change. First, Google admittedly did state it was a “very lightweight signal” affecting a small amount of global queries. Some speculate that the roll out may not have gone into full effect yet; still others are calling Google’s bluff. Whichever camp you belong to, it’s clear that encryption is a focus for Google this summer and is likely to increase in importance overtime as the privacy trend continues. Forewarned is forearmed.

Rich Snippets

Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller shocked the SEO community announcing that the search giant is abandoning Google Authorship, a microdata markup attributing content to a particular author. Those in the know may have seen this coming, with a change to search results pages (SERPs) in July when bylines and images were stripped. Something was up with this particular feature.

John Mueller’s announcement, seen here on Google +, explains that through testing they discovered the information wasn’t as useful as once thought; in fact, it was distracting in some instances. Once thought to increase clickthrough rates, author snippets didn’t actually deliver significant improvement. Low adoption rates is likely another cause for the decision to get rid of authorship. While sites like The New York Times adopted markup, the Washington Post (for another example) did not. Without widespread adoption, author snippets didn’t accurately reflect perceived value.

Google plans to continue their discovery of additional uses for rich snippets in SERPs, because rich snippets provide useful information for the end user. Event snippets are growingly common, showing date, location and time of the event in SERPs. Music album snippets, product snippets such as reviews, recipe snippets, and video snippets are just a few of the opportunities available. No doubt rich snippets are here to stay, although it’s unfortunate that some SEO experts continue to recommend continued use of authorship snippets.

Pigeon

One particular Google update of importance this summer was rolled out at the end of July. The update aimed to provide more accurate and relevant local search results. It’s described to have tied more closely traditional web ranking signals with local search signals. Search Engine Land took the liberty of naming it the Pigeon update (“Pigeon is the name we decided on because this is a local search update and pigeons tend to fly back home”).

Summer SEO News You Should Know About: HTTPS. Rich Snippets, More image Pigeon Dollarphotoclub 40706319While speculation abounds with this update, experts noticed that Pigeon affects only English queries in the U.S. Moz has reported reduced numbers of 7-packs that show in local queries, with an increase in 3-packs. Experts have seen that the search radius has been reduced for most local queries and, most importantly, that local businesses seem to be favored over local brands.

Pigeon may seem like a small change, but it’s certainly changed the SERPs for many verticals. As expected, effects are still being monitored and analyzed. Best practices are still important for sites dependent on local traffic. This article discusses some great best practices for local search including:

1. Set up your own individual Google + local page and do it correctly: all information provided, images, local phone number, proper category and consistent name/address/phone number (NAP) information.
2. Consistent NAP throughout your website (About Us and/or footer), and consistent on other online listings as well.
3. Encourage your customers to leave reviews of your business.
4. Geo-specific information should be added to metatags as appropriate, with your site optimized for geo queries.

It’s likely that you’ve been doing most things right with your local strategy. Pigeon will require a second look, ensuring you’re maintaining the best possible website for local rankings. Those trying to benefit from local search without being in that area (i.e., actually local) aren’t likely to benefit much longer. Consider evaluating your current local strategy and revamping as needed based on Pigeon.

Penguin 3.0?

The rumored Penguin 3.0 update on the lips of many has yet to surface this summer. Barry Schwartz speculated that we would see an update over the Labor Day weekend, and Mozcast has been indicating fluctuations in the space for several weeks now. We continue to wait… and wait.Summer SEO News You Should Know About: HTTPS. Rich Snippets, More image penguin with magnifying glass Dollarphotoclub 59892474 e1410210253133 300x228

Protect your site from Penguin

Ensure you’re not a sitting duck for a penalty by looking for the telltale signs of a Penguin prone site. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you have over-optimized pages and backlinks with over-optimized commercial anchor text?
2. Do you have a high number of total links but low number of links from unique domains?
3. Have you purchased links in the past or conducted gray-hat link building strategies such as reciprocal links, text link advertisements and link exchanges?
4. Is your backlink profile diversified with a mixture of link types, authority and relevancy?

If you answered yes to #1-#3 you’re not sitting in a good position. If you answered #4 you’re on the right track. Experts recommend reviewing your backlink profile regularly and understanding what a natural backlink profile looks like. Check out this Google Penguin Recovery Kit by Vertical Measures to learn more about recovery tips. To avoid future Penguin penalties clean up past activities and ensure you’re earning authoritative, relevant and worthwhile links from here on out.

2014 SEO Trends You Need to Know

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With the recent Panda 4.0 Google algorithm update, SEO is beginning to change in 2014. Changing best practices, keywords and relevancy are just some of the issues businesses now face. It is important to keep up with the latest trends in the space so that your business doesn't find itself on the wrong side of a Google manual penalty that keeps you from showing up in Google's organic results. Here are some trends to take note of when building your business SEO profile in 2014:

Content is king
The ability to create unique, high-quality content is integral for any business' success online. People on the internet are constantly bombarded with hundreds of messages and organic results to choose from when they search for something, so if your content stands out by offering the reader an optimized title and the ability to understand your product or service in a unique way, you'll do much better at capturing their attention than your competitors. Two great options to provide this high quality content is the use of blog posts or whitepapers - however, thinking in broader terms with visual options like videos and infographics can be extremely effective when done correctly as well.

The increasing importance of mobile
The number of people that are using their smartphones and tablets to access the internet is increasing at an extremely fast pace. In today's world of online business, companies that are not optimized for mobile use are putting themselves at a grave disadvantage. A good responsive design can help your business' website keep its look, feel, and integrity across a variety of mobile devices so that anyone viewing your website will get the best experience possible. Search engines like Google are aware of this, and will rank websites with responsive or mobile optimized versions higher than those that don't in organic results.

Conversational search
With the Hummingbird change to the Google search algorithm better handling conversational and long-tail search queries, businesses that are not appropriately optimized will soon find themselves having a harder time ranking well and generating non-branded organic traffic. Optimizing your website for longer tail keywords and phrases will provide more value than ever before and will help to make your website's keyword rankings more diverse.

Links in press releases are great for brand recognition, but not SEO
Toward the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, Google officially announced that having links that passed equity ("dofollow") in a press release could be the basis of a manual penalty to a website. This means that businesses that still use or have press releases that link to their business could find their rankings negatively affected. Make sure that if your business has used press releases in the past that you go back and mark those links as "nofollow." They will still provide some SEO value this way without endangering your entire website's organic rankings.

Relevancy of content to website theme
More than ever, the content on your website should be relevant to keywords that relate to your website. This basically means that if you haven't already, make sure that each of your pages makes sense in the grand scheme of your website. So if your business is selling say, cakes, make sure that the content on your website is relevant to cakes and that the keywords you use make sense in that context. This is something that your business ideally should have been doing in an SEO strategy before, but with the new Panda 4.0 update, having content that doesn't make sense with the rest of your website can now actually hurt you.

SEO is ever changing and 2014 isn't an exception. Making sure that your website stays within search engine guidelines by taking these trends into account is extremely important to your organic results. If your business acts quickly, you can take advantage of competitors who have not been following SEO best practices and have been penalized in the wake of Panda 4.0 to help get the most out of these strategies and increase your business' organic rankings.