Last Updated on Mar 18, 2013 by Jenna Scaglione
Are you worried about how to stay complaint with Google’s guidelines?
Are you wondering if you will be hit by the next Google update?
The entire landscape of SEO has changed over the past year and it has webmasters scratching their heads and worrying about the longevity of their sites. Following Google and its updates can be confusing and overwhelming, especially since the search engine makes over 500 changes a year.
Thankfully, most of the updates are insignificant and you only need to know about a few to survive online. In addition, knowing Google’s patterns and how the search engine looks at a site’s value is key and that is what I will discuss in today’s post.
If you want to survive ranking in Google, here are some points to which you must pay attention:
Over-Optimization
Beware of over-optimizing your site, whether on or off page.
On-page content – You may have heard to avoid keyword stuffing before, but following this advice is even more critical in today’s SEO environment. It no longer applies to just spammers who add excessive keywords throughout their content. You could be keyword stuffing and not know it.
If you have an EMD (exact match domain), you must pay attention to this even more. If your keyword is in your domain as an exact match, avoid using your keyword too much on your web pages. I would even suggest removing them from some headers and metadata. If you are currently ranking well and have enjoyed good rankings, I wouldn’t adjust much, but be aware of the situation should anything change.
It’s important to understand that when Google looks at your site, it is examining many different factors, not just one. If any red flags go off, you may have a problem. Having an EMD is not necessarily a red flag, but it can be an issue if it is accompanied by other factors such as too many keywords.
If you do not have an EMD, pay attention to how many times you use the exact keyword. If you lost rankings, remove some instances of the keyword from your metadata, headers and content, and replace them with on-topic variations instead.
Off-Page Factors
Is your link anchor text over-optimized with too many exact match keywords? If so, vary your anchor text with keyword variations and generic text.
Also, pay attention to the sites linking to you. If they are low-quality, it will affect your rankings. We will talk about low quality sites in the coming weeks.
User Engagement
User engagement is the metric Google uses to determine whether your site is worthy of ranking. It’s a little more complex than this, but essentially, the more you can please your visitors, the more you will please Google.
One of the metrics Google uses to determine user experience is the time your visitors spend on your site. Keep your bounce rate low. If your visitors are “bouncing back” off your site to re-enter the search results, Google sees that as a user who didn’t receive what he was looking for.
Consider adding engaging elements to your site to keep users satisfied. Elements like quality content, most popular products, a professional design that targets your audience, contact information displayed prominently, social capabilities (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.), product videos, forums, blogs, and anything that will keep visitors from clicking that “dreaded” back button.
At a minimum, avoid over-optimization and seek to increase the user engagement on your site. This one-two punch will help you not only increase your rankings, but also maintain them regardless of whatever Google throws at you next.