Conquering Google

As a business it may feel like you’re in the dark when it comes to how Google ranks websites or all the crazy tips that help increase your page rank. When it really boils down, Google has a couple primary focuses when it ranks your site. Links, keyword density, and frequency all play a part in how the Google bot ranks your website. Here’s why Google weighs in so heavily on these items.

Links can tell a lot about a website. The number of other websites with links pointing to your website can indicate your sites popularity. The number of links on your site pointing to other sites can show that you have good information resources. The very first thing the Google bot looks at when it visits your site is your website domain name. This in essence is a link and out of your domain name the bot will try to pull keep words. For example if your url is blackhillswebdesign.com it will figure that the domain contains four keywords(black, hills, web, design). This is your most valuable asset to your website. Google will also look at your link relevancy, which means that the links going to and from your website have to have common information. You can’t link network with other website that have completely opposite information categories. Google will actually look down on this and either blacklist you or give you a pretty bad rank. So remember your links need to be relevant, popular, and keyword rich.

Many times when you’re writing content for your website you miss out on the fact that Google is looking for keywords that people would use to find your site. For example, if you write your “About Us” page without any reference to your industry or what you do for a living, you can consider that page a wash. Google will come trotting along, scan it, and determine there is not any useful information on the page since it doesn’t correlate to the rest of the site content or the keywords in your link network. Keyword density means you try to write your content in a way that uses keywords that describe your site as often as possible. If for example we were looking at the keyword density of the previous paragraph you would count 8 keywords for “link”. Google will look at your keyword densities and figure to itself “hmmm… this site uses a lot of words with reference to links.... Perhaps this site is important and should be ranked higher.” Granted, you still have to have your other ducks in a row like link networks and good content.

You can’t simply create it and then leave it. It’s a complete waste of money, time, and brainpower to create a website but not update it. Google holds the same point of view. If you create a site and abandon it you run the risk of showing Google that you don’t care. This is why you find many sites (like this one) with a blog section. If you can show Google that your site has interesting keyword rich content that’s new and updated on a consistent basis, you stand a much better chance of Google liking you. It is also advantageous to keep your site fresh so that visitors will come back and spend time on your site. Now I understand that most sites are complicated and you may be saying “Well I don’t know how to program…” but realistically there are tons of free content management systems on the market that allow you to, with very little startup cost, create highly customized and accessible interfaces for yourself to manage. To put it in a nutshell, Google is totally A.D.D and you need to keep it entertained. Make sure you add, delete, or update your site content at least once a month.

Everything I have explained in this article is easy to do, but it takes time. It will take committment, innovation, experience, and a lot of time to sit down and logically look at your site. That’s where companies like Spore Creative come in. We do it for you, we create the link network, we optimize your content for keyword density, and we also maintain and update your site so it remains fluid and interesting.

While there are many other techniques used to improve your Google rank, these are some of the primary ones.