Google Starter Guide to Search Engine Optimization

Ethical Search Engine Optimization Tips Guide for Small Business and Non-profits:

Google endorses blogs and social media as a great way to get search engine optimization (seo):

Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site’s reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.

In addition, here is an outline which summarizes the SEO tips Google provided for businesses:

Make your site easier to navigate

Good practices for site navigation
• Create a naturally flowing hierarchy
• Use mostly text for navigation
• Use “breadcrumb” navigation
• Put an HTML sitemap page on your site, and use an XML Sitemap file
• Consider what happens when a user removes part of your URL
• Have a useful 404 page

Offer quality content and services

Good practices for content
• Write easy-to-read text
• Stay organized around the topic
• Use relevant language (Google keyword tool)
• Create fresh, unique content
• Offer exclusive content or services
• Create content primarily for your users, not search engines

Write better anchor text

• Choose descriptive text
• Write concise text
• Write concise text
• Think about anchor text for internal links too

Use heading tags appropriately

Good practices for heading tags
• Imagine you’re writing an outline
• Use headings sparingly across the page

Optimize your use of images

Good practices for images
• Use brief, but descriptive filenames and alt text
• Supply alt text when using images as links
• Store images in a directory of their own
• Use commonly supported filetypes

Make effective use of robots.txt

Good practices for robots.txt
• Use more secure methods for sensitive content

Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links

Promote your website in the right ways

Good practices for promoting your website
• Blog about new content or services
• Don’t forget about offline promotion
• Know about social media sites
• Add your business to Google’s Local Business Center
• Reach out to those in your site’s related community

Make use of free webmaster tools

Take advantage of web analytics services

More to come…

For more SEO Tips Check out this Pub Con Roundtable on SEO.

Google Trifecta for Your Website: A Video Webinar about Google analytics and tracking your potential customer’s behavior on your website.