Google SEO Strategies

With over 3.5 billion searches per day it's no secret that Google is the king of online searches.

Website owners and Internet marketing specialists constantly search for the best Google SEO methods to rank highly in Google's search results pages.

In this article, we'll explain how Google's SEO algorithms affect your site's ranking and what you can do to help your pages rank higher.

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Think like Google

In order to understand Google's algorithms and SEO, it's crucial to understand the way Google thinks.

Google's job as a search engine is to return the best possible results for its user's queries. Google's algorithms are designed to incentivize quality content from website owners and provide quality, authoritative websites to its users.

But content shouldn't be written for Google —it should be written for users. Google doesn't rank websites based on how well it likes the information, but how useful the information is to its users.

How Google SEO algorithms change

Since Google is constantly working to improve its search experience, its algorithms are always changing. This means that SEO is an ongoing project for any website owner.

Google algorithms have seen their fair share of changes over the years too.

Each update is designed to make search results better for users. Let's talk about a few of the most major updates so far.

The update named Florida, which happened in November 2003, put the SEO industry on the map. This update penalized sites that used black hat tactics like keyword stuffing.

In 2005, the XML Sitemap update really allowed SEO to influence site crawling and indexation. It also allowed web owners to submit sitemaps directly to Google using Webmaster Tools.

Google Local and Google Maps also became available in 2005, which impacted local SEO and encouraged businesses everywhere to literally put themselves on the map.

Vince, an update in 2009, showed SEO favored big brands, which brought about ideas that bigger brands would have long term success in the world of SEO.

In December 2010, Google confirmed that they used information from both Twitter and Facebook to determine ranking — a huge step for Google that placed a lot of power in the hands of other companies.

In 2012, Google penalized sites that placed ads "above the fold," saying it harmed user experience.

A lot of the Panda and Penguin updates happened along the way that shaped how Google looked at content and external links, respectively.

Penguin 4.0, the most recent update in September 2016, enabled real-time index updates and made Penguin a part of the core algorithm.

Some of the most popular rules of today's algorithms include quality content, a diverse backlink profile with quality links, and positive user experience signals.

What are the best SEO strategies for my website?

While Google can change every day, you can still follow a few best practices to get results for your business.

Navigation

Navigation allows visitors to find their way around your website with ease.

It also provides users with a map of your website so that they don't have to go through tons of pages to find exactly what they need.

If your website isn't easy to navigate, you could cause your visitors to bounce from your site.

Content

Both search engines and Internet searchers love fresh, quality content. And keeping your site updated with content related to your business and the products and services you provide is a great way to boost your rankings in search results.

You may even consider creating a blog to keep visitors informed about the latest industry trends and happenings at you company.

Keyword density

Keyword stuffing, or filling your content with keywords just to rank higher in Google, actually makes your site rank worse.

Using keywords naturally in your content means that your site mentions your target keyword enough to attract and inform your audience, but not so much that Google penalizes you.

HTML

Clean and accurate HTML code is important to ranking highly in Google. Clean code means using correct title tags, alt tags, and headings, just to name a few.

Links

It's great to have a lot of links to your website, but quality is more important than quantity. Your Google ranking is affected by the authority of the sites that link to you, so shoot to earn some links from noteworthy websites rather than hundreds of links from low-quality sites.

To learn more about backlinks, check out our helpful video below.

Video: Backlinks explained

Chris Zook takes a look at backlinks, what they are, and why they're important.

Though these SEO factors can help your Google ranking, you need to make sure that you constantly update your content so that it is helpful to your page visitors.

WebpageFX can implement the best Google SEO strategies for your site

Google's SEO algorithms are complicated. But ranking in Google can be easy.

WebpageFX specializes in the latest Google SEO algorithm updates to implement the best strategies for our clients.

We're confident in our ability to promote your website on the most-used search engine in the world.

Contact us for more information and a free quote!

Contact us online today or call 888-44W-EBFX to get your unique Google SEO plan.