Website content and structure
Google uses hypertext-matching analysis to examine every aspect of your site. This includes headings and sub-headings. It includes formatting and location of words. Even spelling, grammar and sentence structure! Google reads the page just like a human.
It doesn’t stop there. The pages linking to and from each page are also considered to find the context of each page within a site. The URL of the page is looked at. The alternative text given to images. The age of the page. All are important.
Basic guidelines
Google loves content. Relevant content. Write lots of it. Aim for a page every day.
- Write timely, topical, relevant, useful articles
- Use short sentences - dashes - breaks
- Check spelling and grammar
- Provide a page title and description
- Provide meaningful alternative text for images
- Make good use of key phrases (see below)
Key phrase placement
Key phrase placement makes a huge difference to the relevance of your page in a search. The page title and first heading should be the same and include your key phrase. The content should also contain the phrase. Making one (and only one) instance bold or italic will also help. Sub headings should not be identical to the page title, but should also contain the phrase.
Optimise one phrase per page. Too many phrases may dilute each other. Add individual pages for each related phrase and link them together, ensuring that the links to the page contain the key phase.
Website structure
Structure your website to ensure that related pages fit into a logical hierarchy. Although not essential, try to avoid very deep site structures and always provide clear, useful navigation.
Add pages with useful names containing your keywords. The name in the URL is important for search engines, visitor bookmarking and inbound links.
Your main domain name however is not important. Use this to identify your site and promote your brand.
Related links
Optimise with SiteManager™
With Featurecreep SiteManager™ you can optimise content with ease.
- Add titles and descriptions
- Change site structure
- Set page URL names
- Add semantic content
- Add alt text to images
- Format text as bold or italic
- Add links and keywords
Don’t try to cheat the system
If you cheat, Google will find out. Don't duplicate the content of other sites and don't write just for Google. Write for your audience, always be honest, lawful and ethical and you will get results.
What’s not indexed
Some words will not get indexed, for example ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘for’ and so on. Use these words for grammar, but don’t try to optimise for them.
Useful navigation
Always provide clear and easy to use navigation on every page.
Remember, search engine optimisation will drive visitors to every page of your site. It is essential that they can clearly identify where they are, how to get to the home page and how to find related content.