Is your site the top listed in Google search results? Or is it buried in the fifth “O” of Gooooogle? There are a few good practices you can implement to influence Google’s algorithm and improve where you land in search engine result page (SERP).

This post will concentrate on two key influencers of search results – relevance and authority – and how to impact them – that is if you don’t hire someone that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO). Keep in mind, there are many schools of thought on SEO tactics, but a good, searchable site starts with great content and structure. For a more basic overview refer to “Googlefying Your Business: Understanding Google Basics.”

1. Relevance (on-page SEO) – determines how closely a given Web page matches the search term. This is where keywords, tags, attributes, content and anchor text become important.

• Keywords – determine which keywords are relevant to your industry and which are being searched the most. Refer to your Google Analytics and Webmaster accounts for some insight on the words searchers are using to find you and include them throughout your site.
• Page Title – this appears at the top of the browser window and as the link in search engine results page (SERP). It helps Google determine the content of the page and helps searchers determine whether or not to click on your link. Be sure to use descriptive keywords.
• Page Description – information about the page or a snippet about what the searcher will find on the page. While meta descriptions won’t impact page ranking, good descriptions will make searchers more likely to click on your page.
• URLs – Again this is where rich keywords can be used to impact SEO and your click-through-rate. Also be sure to customize your URLs to match the page. For example, for an “About Us” page, the URL should read http://example.com/AboutUs.
• Images – Google doesn’t read images, so if you do use them, use an “ALT” attribute to include a few words of readable, descriptive text.
• Content – Create useful, relevant information. Sites rich with information will naturally use more keywords and potentially gain more inbound links.

2. Authority (off-page SEO) – This is another element that can influence Google’s algorithm. Some might argue it is the primary influencer. It is a measurement based on the number of inbound links on your page from other pages and their authority – not all inbound links are created equal. How do you build your authority?

• Interact – get out there and post to other blogs. Don’t spam, but offer thoughtful responses to blogs you are already reading and that interest you. Once you post your comment a trackback will be created.
• Blog – the more thought-provoking, useful content you create, the more comments and references you are likely to receive.
• Anchor text – this is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink that usually gives the user a relevant description of the link’s destination. Using relevant keywords as anchor text can help with search results.

There are countless ways to impact SEO, but this should give you a good base to start from. I’m curious what SEO tactics have been used? What has been successful? What hasn’t worked?

For the audio interview click the play button below, and for the video podcast visit

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Are you being found on Google? If not, how can you be sure that you are? After you’ve run your site through Websitegrader.com, created Google Webmaster and Analytics accounts, and submitted your URL and Sitemap to the major search engines, understanding the basics of how Google works can help you improve where you show up in search results.

As part two of this four-part series on “Googlefying Your Business,” this post will cover a brief anatomy of Google. While Google uses an intricate algorithm to determine search ranking, there a few key components to improving your search results:

• Crawling – this is how the Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index. Google regularly crawls the web – a process that can be enhanced by providing your Sitemap data to the search engine – and detects links on each page of the sites it visits. It adds these links to its list of pages to crawl. More inbound links can equal more crawls. In other words, the more sites you have linking back to or referencing your site the better.
• Indexing – the Googlebot reads every page it crawls and compiles an index of the words and their location on these pages. When a search is conducted Google looks through the billions of pages in its index and delivers the best result based on relevance and authority. This is also where keywords come into play. Key content tags and attributes like Title tags and ALT attributes are all processed. To help ensure the site is indexed you can also manually add it to Google.
• Serving results – when a search is conducted, Google searches its index for matching pages and returns, or serves, the most relevant results. Relevancy is based on hundreds of factors, but a couple important factors are keywords and incoming links from other pages. Simply put, each link to a page on your site from another site can help improve your site’s search-ability. We’ll delve a little deeper into affecting search results in the next blog. In the meantime, visit Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for a few tips.

With these three components, and a basic understanding of how Google works, you can begin to think about how to improve your site and increase your ranking. If you’ve recently gone through this process, what did you find to work the best? Feel free to share any tips or tools.

If you are serious about improving your SEO, I recommend contacting an SEO specialist. For more tips and tricks checkout Chuck Reynold’s blog at rYnoweb. Another good read Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.

For the audio interview click the play button below, and for the video podcast visit JetPack Radio.

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It’s no secret that Google is the number one search engine, so it should come as no surprise that it can also make or break the traffic on your site. Google is extremely powerful and when a site is properly optimized traffic can reach new heights, resulting in more potential leads.

This post is part one of four part series on “Googlefying Your Business.” First, a few easy steps to get you started on the right foot.

1.    Websitegrader.com – Measure the marketing effectiveness of your site. This free tool by HubSpot will review your on-page SEO, Google Page Rank, indexed pages, traffic rank, inbound links, and blog grade to name a few. Great place to get started.

Websitegrader.com homepage

2.    Google Webmaster Tools – Create an account and verify your site. The tool will allow you to monitor and test your site’s performance.

• Test crawler access
• Submit your Sitemap
• Research top search queries and keywords, links to your site, RSS subscriber stats, internal links
• Detect crawl errors and malware
• Review HTML suggestions

3.    Add your site’s URL to Google – Help Google index your site. While Google adds new sites to its index every time it crawls the Web, this will help accelerate the process.
4.    Submit your Sitemap – This also helps Google index your site faster and more accurately. According to search engine optimization (SEO) guru Chuck Reynolds of rYnoweb, every site should use one.
5.    Add Google Analytics – Analyze traffic data, test and track campaigns, customize reports and charts, and determine how to best target and reach your audience.

What tools have you used to optimize your Web site and bolster its marketing effectiveness? Leave a comment with any suggestions you might have. Stay tuned for more on this topic.

For the audio interview click the play button below, and for the video podcast visit JetPack Radio.

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