MOVE UP THE GOOGLE RANKINGS – HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
A: USABILITY
Usability refers to the ease of use of the website by visitors to the website. Characteristics of a usable site are fonts that are easy to read, manageable download times, colours that blend and are easy on the eye, simple navigation, content of a manageable size, information loaded where it is supposed to be, titles that refer to the page content, and links that are meaningful. HigherGoogleRanking uses various metrics as well as real user testing to determine the usability of a site.
The Navigation Bar Location
The Navigation Bar (or ‘navbar’) is the collection of links that connect one page on the web to another. The location of the navigation bar is a creative issue but it usually appears on the top or left hand side of a page. It is not good practice to locate the navigation bar on the right side of the screen because for users who have the resolution on their monitors turned down low (the visually impaired are amongst this group) or those who have small monitors (laptops or PDAs) may miss out on noticing it. Also it is not a good idea to locate the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen because it also may not appear. Forcing a user to use a scrollbar is not good usability practice.
Link Names and keywords
Keywords are the words used by a user in his search for a website. One of ways of optimisation of a website for search engine software and achieve higher google ranking is to increase the number of times the keywords searched for occur in a website. Not only does HigherGoogleRanking work with our clients to select the optimum keywords for the client’s site, we use a number of techniques to increase the density of keywords within the site. Some of these methods are not apparent to a human user, after all it would become tedious to read the same words on every line of copy of a website. There are other methods to embed keywords into a website that are not immediately obvious. However, search engine software is not stupid. Frequently updated, bots no longer fall for old tricks such as embedding keywords typed in white on a white background page for instance (you can’t see it because it’s white on white – get it?) Nevertheless, we have a wide depth of experience in this area, and we are constantly updating the algorithms in order to optimise web search noticeability.
Page Headings for Higher Google Ranking
Page headings should ideally reflect the content of the page. Using the keywords that are the subject of the page will not only aid in the relevance of the page heading to the page content but also increase the density of keywords. Similar advice applies to headings within a page, and also the title that appears in the browser bar at the top of the screen.
Tags
‘ Tags’ are special descriptors used in html, which is the language web pages are written in. Besides keyword tags, title tags and heading tags that have been mentioned above, there are other html tags which when used properly may add to the noticeability of a website to a search engine bot. A description tag is the byline your company uses to identify itself. Anchor tags are locators in a website. Having relevant anchor tags will increase keyword density.
Site Map for Search Engine Optimisation
A site map is an overview of the site containing indicators to every major area. It usually appears at the bottom (‘footer’) of each page of a site, and contains links to the relevant pages of information on the site. From the user perspective, a site map enables simpler navigation through the site, which is particularly important in the case of large websites. A business will suffer for instance if there is no simple way to reach a ‘contact’ page or if there is no way back from a certain page than via logging off the site and logging back on. It is self evident that both the user and search engine will find it easier to sift through a site for relevant information if the site is clearly categorised.
From the search
engine point of view, a site map will add to the number of times
a keyword appears on a page which will increase its search engine
visibility. Links that contain keyword phrases as hypertext links to
key pages increase the ‘density’ of keywords which makes
them more visible to a search engine. On visits to the site, search engines
look for a site map, and not having one will reduce your search engine
visibility.
Action:
Your website needs a site map! The site map, consisting of keywords
and descriptive phrases, should be accessible from all pages within
the website. We think it best to locate the site map at the footer
of each page.
Inclusion of Error Pages
Often users of a website come across a page which is labelled ‘404’. Arriving at a 404 page usually means that the user is out of the site, and to get back in necessitates extra work. This does not create a good impression, much the same as the on-hold telephone message ‘your call is important to us’ makes on a caller. If the call is so important, how come the caller is forced to wait thirty minutes before receiving attention!
Users get to a 404 page due to several causes:-
• User: the user mistyped the website address or have used the wrong URL;
• Browser: the user has not updated his browser’s bookmarks or favourite;
• Web designer: there is an internal broken link in the website itself.
• Search engine: the search engine used has not revisited the site since the site was updated and therefore cannot find a page.
The first reason
can be minimised by having a user-friendly domain name in the first
place. Choosing a good domain name is an extremely important
element of web presence and part of the service 4micate provides when
setting up a website. Updating a browser’s bookmarks and favourites
is a user’s responsibility – however the user may be reminded
via a friendly link on the website. As for the third cause, broken links
are symptomatic of poorly thought out and sloppily maintained websites.
When optimising a site HigherGoogleRanking will provide a customized
404 Error Page. If the page no longer exists it will be flagged. If it
has
been
relocated,
the user will be redirected to the site map.
It is important to have one’s website reviewed on occasion. This
is another service 4micate provides. Independent maintenance is particularly
important in the case of websites that are updated by the client.
The last reason, a search engine not having visited the site recently and therefore missing out on changes, is the subject of the next section.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Search engines use various methods or algorithms to rate a website. The ‘bots’, software used by the website, rates the relevance of a page’s content to the searched for keywords. They also rate the relevance of a website by the depth of its embedment into the web – they see the web as a massive collection of inter-connected files and on that basis the more connections a page has to other pages on the web, the more ‘important’ it appears to be. 4micate uses systems to increase the number of connections a website has to other pages on the web, thereby increasing the probability that a bot will revisit the website and hence minimise the number of error messages appearing.
Browser type and version
Different types and versions of browsers may ‘see’ a website in a different way. If a website has been written by the web designer with only one browser and version in mind other browsers may not be able to interpret the html code as intended and mistakes may appear on the website. HigherGoogleRanking reviews a website with the view of making it accessible to all browsers.
Google Ranking Relevance
How relevant is the page’s content to the subject of the search? Search engine bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated. No longer satisfied by rating a page by the number of times keywords appear, they are now judging the relevance of the keywords to the actual content of the page. This involves complex algorithms which aim to mimic the way humans comprehend information. Getting noticed therefore is not as easy as repeating keywords both visibly and invisibly (to the human user) on a page. It requires an understanding of the algorithms used and tailoring the html content of a page to suit.
Links
Just as in social relationships where the more people you know increases your chances of knowing even more people, the more links a website has to other links the more it will be noticed. If a website you are connected with is noticed by a search engine bot it is likely that the bot will follow a link on that site to yours. Just as it is good business to have many connections, it is therefore good web business practice to have as many links as possible. Google rates government or educational sites higher than other sites, links to these are more valuable. Portals are another method of creating links. A portal is a directory of links that have some connection with each other. Perhaps your industry association has a portal, perhaps your personnel are connected to other sites. HigherGoogleRanking places great emphasis on creating links to other sites and will aid in increasing the number of links your website has.