ecommerce, personal executive assistant, seo, social media, social media management, virtual assistant services, virtual business assistant, web application, website development

1. Google Best Practices
“What are some of the simple things that I can do right now to improve my websites
performance in Google?”
As you can image there are allot of possible different answers to this question and TONS of
search engine optimization information on the web, so much so it is often overwhelming
and intimidating to small business owners and new webmasters unfamiliar with the topic.
Therefore we thought it would be fun to team up with Google to review their recently
published SEO Starter best practices guide that covers on page search engine optimization.
Why is this Google SEO Starter Guide so
important?
Well one major reason, its Google telling you what they have categorized as important for
them to rank your website into their search engine.
As we review some of these items with you, you may start thinking, “Wow, I just don’t
understand some of this stuff, how on earth am I going to learn all this”
Don’t stress out as this is one of most common things we have been asked from people just
like yourself who are either beginning their online journey or even old pros who are looking to
freshen up their skills, therefore we have developed a this simple SEO roadmap with our video
training series that you can follow through each leg of your journey.
1

2. Google Best Practices
You will discover that basic on page SEO centers on a dozen or so simple things that you
can easily implement today to improve your websites rankings in the search engine
results pages.
And search Engine Optimization will not only improve your organic search result listings but
can actually improve your PPC quality scores, thus reducing your costs per click if you’re doing
pay per click advertising with Google AdWords.
Page Titles
One of the most important factors in SEO is using proper page titles on the various
pages of your website.
2

3. Google Best Practices
Your page titles are what Google will display on their search engine results pages
Some simple tips when developing your page titles include;
• Accurately describe your webpage’s content, what is it about?
• Create unique title tags for each page on your website
• Use brief, under 69 characters, descriptive titles
3

4. Google Best Practices
Meta Description Tag
Another important factor in on page search engine optimization is proper use of the Meta
description tag.
The Meta description guide gives Google and other search engines a summary of what your
webpage is all about.
4

5. Google Best Practices
Google may also extract data from your meta description tag to use in your snippet for Google
Instant.
5

6. Google Best Practices
Two simple tips when developing your meta description tag will include;
• Write a description that will inform and interest your users
• And writing unique descriptions for each page
Navigation Structure
Selecting a proper domain name and properly naming your pages and directory structure is
also very important in on page search engine optimization specially if you’re using a content
management system program such as Wordpress or Joomla so you will want to make sure that
you’re providing only one version of a URL string to reach your documents.
You will also want to make sure that your website is easy to navigate both for your users and
the search engines so they can both easily find your content.
6

7. Google Best Practices
Therefore consider using bread crumb lists
7

8. Google Best Practices
Avoid using Java based or Flash driven navigation menus as they are very 2004 and will block the
search engines crawling deep into your website. Also take in consideration the mobile users
that will be coming to your website as flash will be totally ignored by all those iPhone users.
Instead use CSS menu system which is supported in the new rollout of HTML five that is
about to take place now.
8

9. Google Best Practices
Sitemaps
Think of sitemaps as roadmaps that will your users and search engines will follow to find
all of your important pages on your website.
You will want to create two sitemaps on your website;
• An HTML sitemap that your users can follow and
• An XML sitemap that the search engines can follow
9

10. Google Best Practices
Another tip, create a custom and useful 404 page on your website. A 404 page will appear
whenever a page is missing from your website.
10

11. Google Best Practices
Develop Great Content
A mantra that you will hear over and over again in SEO is; Content is King; Context is Queen
• Write content that is link bait that your users will link to, refer to their friends and
bookmark
• Interesting sites will increase their recognition on their own
• Create fresh and unique content
• Also consider creating a new and useful service, something no one else is doing
• Create content primarily for your users, not for the search engines
11

12. Google Best Practices
12

13. Google Best Practices
Anchor Tags
Make sure that you use keywords in your links to other pages on your website.
Using proper anchor tags tell your users and the search engines what the next page is all about
13

14. Google Best Practices
Simple Tips
• Choose descriptive text
• Write concise text
• Format your links so they are easy to spot
• Avoid the anchor tag “click here”
14

15. Google Best Practices
Use of Images
One of the most important factors in the Google Caffeine algorithm update in May
of 2010 is speed and how long it takes to load your webpage’s.
Therefore you will want to make sure that you optimize all the images and
graphics on your website without having any noticeable visual degradation.
15

16. Google Best Practices
Simple Tips
• Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text
• Supply alt text when using images as links
• And create an image sitemap file
16

17. Google Best Practices
Use of Headlines
Header tags play a very important role in on page SEO and you will want to make
sure that you use them appropriately;
Therefore you will need to decide what are the appropriate keyword terms that
you want to focus on for each page on your website.
17

18. Google Best Practices
Best Practices
• Only use headlines to emphasize important text on your webpage
• Use keywords in your headlines
• Don’t overuse the headline tags on your webpage’s
18

19. Google Best Practices
Robots Text File
Your website should have a robots.txt file that is placed in the root directory of
your website which will act as a traffic cop and direct how the search engine will
index your site.
Your robots.txt file will restrict the crawling of webpage’s and directories that you
do not want indexed into the search engines.
However, if you have sensitive areas on your website that you want to block out to
both users and the search engine spiders you will want to consider more secure
methods instead, such as using a .HTACESS File on your website.
19

20. Google Best Practices
Use of “nofollow” for Links
Combat spamming of your website in the comment areas of your articles and
posts by automatically adding the “nofollow” attribute to all new comments
posted by other users on your website.
20

21. Google Best Practices
You can also use the meta “no follow” tag on your webpage’s so you don’t leak page
juice to less important pages such as your contact page, policy pages on your website.
Mobile Users
Last year there were 63 million people in the US that accessed the Internet from a mobile
device and it is forecast that by 2013 that there will be over 1.7 billion users worldwide.
With these kind of numbers it is imperative that small business owners and web designers
understand and implement mobile best practices into their online marketing NOW!
To be successful in this market you should consider creating a version of your website just
for your mobile users. In some cases it may be as easy as using a Wordpress plug in if your
site was developed using Wordpress.
And again you will want to avoid using flash or java script navigation on your website if you
don’t have a mobile website developed for your mobile users.
As you do create your mobile site you will want to make sure that it is configured properly so
it can be indexed accurately by the search engines and to verify with a mobile device that your
site is indexed by Google.
21

22. Google Best Practices
Best Practices
• Create a XML sitemap for your mobile pages
• Redirect your mobile users through your .HTACESS or user agent files
to the proper mobile pages
22

23. Google Best Practices
23

24. 24