How to Rank Well With Google

Posted by admin on October 12, 2011 under Search Engines, SEO, Web Design | Be the First to Comment

A lot of speculation has been around for years about exactly what Google looks at to decide who ranks where.  After years of ideas, Google quietly released a blog post discussing the list of questions that you should ask yourself before adding pages to your site.  Many examples proved that it wasn’t necessarily inbound links or PageRank that was going to get you on that elusive front page of Google.  Google once again confirmed that content is king. Not only content, but the structure and quality of that content.

Here is the list of questions that Google presented on their site that you should print out and ask yourself whenever you decide to do a post, article or page on your own website.  We take a look at each one.

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
  This is a biggie. What about your site can be trusted? Are you posting this content only for SEO sake or does your website actually contain other similar information that would collectively make this content trustworthy?  For instance, if you only sell bikes, but you make a page focusing on cars just to try and get ranked for some car related term, it won’t work.  You’re not a trusted source for info on “cars”.
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
  This is pretty self explanatory. Don’t write about something that you haven’t discussed in detail before.  Again, if you’re a bike shop, don’t write about cars because you haven’t done or written anything to establish yourself as an authority on cars.
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
  Even if you are an expert on the article you’re writing about, do not then take that article and repost it in several areas of your website altering the content slightly to make it look like there are more articles on the subject than there actually is.  Google has very sophisticated algorithms to spot this kind of activity and will devalue all of them which would be a waste of your efforts.
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
  This would relate more to a retail site, but there again is the confidence factor Google is looking for.
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
  Use spell check or, even better, create your content in Word or a similar program before posting so that you can check for both spelling and grammatical errors.
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
  When we write content on our blog here, we’re writing out of interest for any given topic. You should never write content based on a hot keyword. However, there are plenty of benefits to looking to see what topics are currently hot for your given industry and to provide information on what people are searching for.That seems like opposing statements, but it really isn’t. If you have an entertainment blog that discusses music, you would be wise to see what’s trending in the music world and make sure that you provide content for that topic. Not just because you want to rank, but you’re giving people what they find genuinely interesting within your genre.
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
  Did you write the article yourself or did you just copy and paste it from somewhere else? This post is a prime example of that. We took a list of questions that Google has indicated it pays attention to and provided more details and insight into the reasoning behind it.
  
  
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
  Simple enough to understand. If a person searches for “funk music”, the sites that have a lot of information on funk music or totally dedicated to funk music will get those top slots as opposed to sites that aren’t completely relevant to the search.
  
• How much quality control is done on content?
  Do you have multiple misspellings and grammatical errors in your content? Not only that, but believe it or not, Google also does “fact checking” as well, although we’re sure that part of the algorithm probably has its limitations. 
  
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
  If an article or piece seems very one sided compared to other offerings, Google may sway towards the site that maybe offers more variety of angles on a topic.
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
  This is where linking sometimes comes into play. Do any authoritative sites link to you as another authority on a topic? But yet again, that won’t matter much if your site is one of very few that specializes on a given topic. Links always accent your efforts, but getting them naturally is much better and won’t get you busted by Google.
  
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
  Don’t need to explain this too much. If you know the content was already posted on many websites, then don’t bother posting it on yours unless you plan to heavily modify it.
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
  Another question from Google that supports the frowning of Google on misspellings and grammatical errors.
  
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
  Google takes sites that make health claims very seriously. This may have some underlying legal implications for them, but with health sites in particular, they undergo very intense scrutiny.
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
  This would be up for interpretation, but when you think “travel” you think Travelocity or “health”? WebMD. This level of authority matching would apply to larger, broader topics. More specific topics won’t necessarily undergo this level of scrutiny unless the topic if highly competitive.
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
  The more you can give, the better. More content will always win.
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
  If you go with the details of a story that every other website also covers, you put yourself at the mercy of who posted first. But if you provide more details than other sites, you can get the edge.  More details doesn’t mean you get the scoop on a story which is typically improbable. However, providing more background information on people, places or things within the story will beef up your content and hand you the advantage.
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
  If you can’t see someone bookmarking or sharing your post or story, it’s probably a waste of time.
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
  It’s good to make money with affiliate ads, but when the site or page is overwhelmed with them, you’ll lose. The customer may not know it’s an affiliate link, but Google does.
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
  We think this question was thrown in to  make you think more about the importance of quality content, but good solid content always wins anyway, so it’s a good rule to follow.
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
  Yet more bulletpoints to support the “beef up your content” campaign.
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
  And even more…
  
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
  This is an obvious one. If people hate your site or content, they leave quickly which results in a “bounce”. More bounces means your rankings will drop. More negative reviews and the same can be expected.

A Deeper Look At Keyword Intent and Bounce Rates

Posted by admin on August 29, 2011 under Bing, Coding, Google, Keyword Research, Search Engines, SEO, Web Design, Yahoo! | Read the First Comment

Locating the right keywords are imperative to your SEO success. A lot of people lose focus on a visitors intent instead of really looking at why a person is searching for a specific keyword.  Someone searching for “bears” is probably looking for something different than some searching for “Chicago Bears.”  While this seems like a “no brainer”, I see it all of the time when I ask clients to tell me what keywords that they would like to rank for.  I know that their suggestions will be far fetched and way too broad, but that’s because people don’t understand how a search engine has to analyze intent.  And that’s fine, because I’m more curious as to where the person’s head is at.

This conversation is a good example of how humans might process information.

A friend comes to you and says, “I saw a bear.”
“Wow.”, you say. “Where?”
“Across the street!”
“Across the street from here?”
“No. Up in the mountains.”
“What mountains?”
“In Helen, Georgia.”
“Was it a big bear?”
“Huge!”
“What kind of bear was it?”
“No idea.”
“Well, what color was it?”
“It was a black bear.”

While this conversation may seem silly, it could have been avoided if the person simply started the conversation by saying, “I saw a huge black bear across the street when I was up in the mountains of Helen, Georgia.”  At that point, you have all of the information that you need.  However, this is the exact same thing that happens when a person puts broad keywords into a search engine.  They may have a vision of the results they expect to see, but they simply put “bear” in the search window without giving the search engine the data it needs to know the whole story.  Depending on the broadness of the keyword will determine how much interpretation the search engine has to do.

This is why website siloing is so important is because it allows you to start broad, but still lead the visitor down certain paths depending on more specific data. It’s also why keyword research is so very important. You may think you want to rank for “bear”, but if your website focuses only on Georgia black bears, you’ll kill yourself trying to rank for “bear”.  Then you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why “Build a Bear”, the “Chicago Bears”, “Bear Bryant” and tons of other sites outrank you. And unless you expand your content to include all things “bear”, they always will. This also goes back to building out the respective areas for specific terms and then optimizing those areas for those longer tail keywords such as “Helen Georgia black bears”.

Customer Intent (But what did you really mean?)

This brings us to customer intent. What did the searcher really want to find? But more importantly, does your website capitalize on that intent? And if it does, can it capitalize on it even more than it already does?

For instance, if a person searches for “windows”, are they trying to find a glass window or are they looking for something to do with the Windows software? You would definitely know if the person used the keyword in “plate glass windows”, but now you don’t know what they want with plate glass windows. Do they want to find more info on types of plate glass windows? Do they want someone to install them? Are they looking for pricing? How can you know for sure? The answer is in your Analytics.

Your best bet is to look at the keyword area under “Traffic Sources” in Google Analytics (assuming that you’ve installed it). You’ll see that people arrived to your site using a variety of keywords and your telltale sign is in the column called “bounce rate”. When a person “bounces”, they are leaving your site within a pre-defined time frame (typically under 5 seconds).  The higher the bounce rate, the less relevant that page probably is to the term they searched for.

However, it doesn’t always mean that it’s not relevant. If the person has searched specifically for “toddler girl dresses” and your page is all about “toddler girl dresses”, then maybe there could be something else on that page is turning them off.   The page could be taking too long to load (check Google Webmaster Tools). Maybe your pricing is too high (try doing some A/B split testing using Google Website Optimizer). Maybe your designs or selection sucks (more A/B split testing). Either way, you should always pay attention to how the person arrived at your page in the first place and pay close attention to keywords that have high bounce rates.

Alternately, if you see a high bounce rate for “blue toddler girl dresses“, and you have 4 blue toddler girl dresses, it’s once again time to analyze why.  Are those blue dresses mixed in with dozens of dresses of another color? If there’s a substantial amount of traffic bouncing for blue toddler girl dresses, maybe it’s time to move your blue dresses onto their own page. That way you can optimize that specific page for various blue dresses keyword terms and start landing those sales.

“Well, I did that and now they’re not bouncing, but they’re still not buying.”  If that’s the case, then you should start looking at your sales funnel. You have that set up, right?  If not, you should head to the Goals area of Google Analytics and get cracking.  Once you have that set up, you can see where they’re leaving the sales process. If they leave before anything even goes in the cart, then maybe it’s your pricing. If they leave on the shipping page, then maybe your shipping cost is too high.  If you end up in that conundrum, than it’s time to fire up Google Website Optimizer and do some A/B split testing and start analyzing different shipping or pricing.

The beauty of all of this is that it’s readily available to you for free via Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer.  So if your sales have slowed down, or you simply can’t even get found on the web, it’s time to research your site structure first, then your page structure, and then the content of those pages. In that order. If you don’t analyze and test, you’re leaving major money on the table.