The following guidelines, specifically the “Quality Guidelines,” are intended to help your site rank higher in Google’s search index. This article will also outline specific illicit material, which may have your site removed from Google and their partner sites indexes.
Once your site is ready, you should procure as many back-links as physically possibly. Use http://www.google.com/addurl.html to submit your site to Google. Double check and be sure that every site that should include your link includes it on their page.
Guidelines for content
- Frequently scan your site for dead links and broken links, as well as HTML.
- Your site should have a clearly presented hierarchy with links to guide users through each page.
- Ensure that your sites title and other headings are descriptive and practical.
- Your site should include an easily accessible site map will help users navigate your site.
- Be sure to populate your site with rich content that directly relates to your product, service or message.
- Be reasonable: having over 100 links on one page is too cluttered and confusing. Consider dividing the load between a few pages.
- Include key phrases throughout your site that people would search for in Google (i.e. if you are a potter from Toronto, spread the phrase “Toronto Pottery” throughout your site).
- The Google Crawler will not pick up images so avoid important bytes of info in picture form. Text is best.
Tech guide
- Take full advantage of the robots.txt file your web server offers, as this will tell spiders what they can and cannot scan, keep it up to date, and avoid blocking the Googlebot Spider. To learn how to direct the bots when they find your site, check out the following link: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html.
- If possible, using a text browser to examine your site can be a real plus, simply because most users see your site just as the browser would. Search Engine Crawlers might have difficulty scanning your site if certain features like JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML or Flash are in place.
- Be sure that your server supports “If-Modified-Since HTTP” header. Doing so will inform Google that a change has been made since the last scan.
- Investing in a search engine optimization Content Management system, such as Bergstrom Solutions, might be a good idea, as they usually take care of much of these elements.
Quality guidelines
- Firstly, DO NOT assume that just because we have not specified a certain manipulative technique that Google or any other popular search engine will necessarily approve of it.
- These are merely guidelines and suggestions.
- Spending time following the core principles relayed in these guidelines will reward you with a higher ranking than those who simply cheat the system by exploiting loopholes.
Core principles
- When creating pages, know your audience and don’t forget that you are writing for people, not Google’s Bot. Avoid “cloaking” your site by deceiving Google’s Bots. People don’t appreciate when their time is wasted.
- Don’t manipulate the Crawler Bots to improve your rankings. If you can’t reveal your secrets to your competitors, then chances are you shouldn’t be utilizing these secrets.
- Don’t fall prey to the many schemes out there that claim to improve your site ranking, as these gimmicks can often permanently brand your site as a bad apple.
- Unauthorized programs that submit pages are a big no-no, as they violate Google’s Terms of Service. Google typically frowns upon the use of automated submission programs.
Specific guidelines
- Never create a site with malicious intent. Creating viruses, worms and cracks are illegal.
- Cloaking and manipulative techniques are frowned upon.
- Avoid irrelevant keywords. There is no sense wasting space.
- Avoid duplicating text, pages, files and documents.
- Stray away from hidden text/ links.
- If your site is in collaboration with another site, or maybe even several other sites, be sure to add relevant and useful content. Give people a reason to visit you!
If your site meets and/or exceeds these guidelines, congratulations! If not, don’t worry, you can always make the appropriate alterations and re-submit your site to Google with the help of a top SEO company.