Google is without a doubt the most used search engine. It refers to the pages of websites according to a complex algorithmic formula of which we do not know all the data and the components and which evolves permanently. We know that this formula has more than 200 criteria combined between them and which have a more or less important importance for the SEO of a site.
With our experience in the web gained with the work done on our video game exchange site: WebClimb , we have decided to write this article in which we will help you better understand how SEO works by Google and give you the 10 tips and tricks you need to optimize the SEO of your site.
1) Definitions of keywords:
Keywords are expressions that must define, qualify your site and / or your activity. Or these are the expressions that users will be likely to type in Google (requests) to arrive on your website or on a site with the same activity as yours.
The words must be present on the pages of your website.
2) The “long tail” rather than the “trolling head”:
For your keywords, use so-called “long tail” terms, which are less competitive and more effective at converting than “trolling” expressions.
Indeed, the average request of Internet users comprises 4 words. You will be much more likely to be competitive with 4 words than 2 words
3) Position all of your pages:
Contrary to what one might think, Google does not refer to websites, but pages of sites! As a result, each page should be considered as a mini-site and should be able to position itself on strong expressions.
4) Well-informed Titles tags:
Each page of your site has a title tag that should be well informed. Of the 200 criteria on which the Google algorithm is based, this is one of the most important!
5) The meta description of your pages:
In the display of the results of a query, Google lists the title of your page, but also displays under this title, two lines, which generally correspond to the meta tag description of your page. This tag consists of a sentence of 160 characters maximum that must be a seller. If you do not fill in these meta description tags, Google will display two lines drawn from the content of your page and the result may not be attractive at all.
6) A “clean” site:
In addition to being interested in the text content of your site, Google is interested in the code in general and does not like errors in this area. Thus a site well mounted with a legible structure, will be better positioned than a site that was poorly designed.
So be sure to close your tags…
7) Optimized loading times:
The spiders robots Google browsing the web and indexing pages visited spend a limited time on your pages hence the need for an ergonomic interface and loading times optimized for these little animals have time to s’ to interest in the content.
8) The quality of the internal links of your site:
The good SEO of your site also resides in referencing from one page to another. It is very important to facilitate navigation from one page to another by inserting internal links on your pages, whose textual content (the anchortext) is correlated with the theme of the page.
In addition, the proportion of 1 to 2 links of 5 to 6 words per 100 words (5% to 6%) should be applied for a total optimization.
9) An image policy:
Let it be said, although change is to be expected soon, Google does not read the content of the images.
And, contrary to what one might think, it is neither the ALT tag, nor the TITLE tag of the image, nor the name of the file which makes it possible to best refer to the images, but rather the text located close to the image.
Therefore, to optimize the SEO of your pages, it is better not to flood them with images and prefer a presentation in gallery and that it is accompanied by consistent text content.
10) Universal research:
In order to optimize the SEO of your site on Google, make sure to be present on both Google search, but also on Google Address and Google Map, creating a page for your company.
Regarding your videos, Google Videos presents almost exclusively results from video sharing sites (YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, …). If your site contains videos, a medium more and more used by companies, do not forget to insert them on these sites.
Finally, for your e-commerce site, you now have the opportunity to reference the products on your site on the Google Shopping price comparison.
To conclude, referencing your site is a long-term job that begins with the design of your site and must continue daily well after the launch of the latter, because on the net the competition is tough and you can quickly lose your rank in the results displayed by Google.
At this little game there, you will have to take stock regularly; for this, many free and / or paid tools exist and we will have the opportunity to present some of them in a future article.
In addition, Google is still working on improving its algorithm for referencing the pages of websites and has already announced that significant changes, particularly related to the display of results, image referencing … are to predict and could come completely change the way of referencing the websites.
We will not fail to keep you informed…