This is a continuation from: How do I get my site into Google? - SEO Article #1
SEO Article #2: “How to Write for Google“ (and some stuff about toads).
I’ll start with my usual caveat: you should write content that people would like to read, or as Google puts it: ‘Always focus on the users and not on search engines’. Even if you are one of the scum-of-the-earth spammers who create pages just to trap innocent people (who searched for Niagara, and you gave them Viagra instead) - you should entertain the notion that they’re not going to buy your overpriced-counterfeit-drugs -that’ll-probably-kill-them, unless you actually give them some information that they would like to read, or that is useful to them — and neither will Google (include your site, that is). Remember also that content is king and the better your content - the better you will rank.
But there are other things you could do to improve your positioning: You will be better noticed on Google if you have two things:
1. Get links from other websites to yours - Google treats every link to your site like a ‘vote’ of confidence. Not only that, but if the websites that link to you have many other sites voting for them, then they have a higher ranking, and therefore you have a higher ranking. This ranking is referred to by Google as PageRank. And you can see a site’s PageRank in the Google Toolbar, if you have one installed (Read more about PageRank here and here).
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT PAGERANK: when you first start publicising your website, don’t worry too much about PageRank. It can take months until Google calculates your PageRanks, and by then, hopefully, you would have worked on getting lots of links from people who love your excellent site. This site, for example, was launched in May 08, and (at the time of writing) has still not been pageranked. It doesn’t stop it from appearing at the top of Google search results many times over, and that all has to do with its content, and how it is presented (See below).
2. Write well for Google. No one outside of Google HQ knows exactly what formulae Google uses to assess whether your content is good. It is safe to assume that it tries to weed out spam, and that it looks for signs that your page grammar indicates a proper language article, as opposed to just a succession of words. But there are things that will help your writing appear higher in Google rankings. I say this from my own experience in getting to the very top of search results, even if your site is new and your PageRank is zero:
- Go niche - if no other site on the web uses the word combination “What are hulk frogs?” and your site does, then when there is a sudden interest in hulk frogs, your site will appear at the top of search results. It’s as simple as that. If, on the other hand, you try to write about “The Movie Hulk”, you will be competing with millions of other hulk sites, and are much less likely to reach top position. Once you’ve digested the consequences of this effect, you will realise that if you cover a niche area, use niche expressions, or tackle niche questions and topics, you are much more likely to get noticed. Of course, if your website is all about Britney Spears (you
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- Consider word density - word density refers to the number of times a word or expression appears in an article. If you write about cane toad feeding habits and you repeat the term “cane toad feeding habits” and the expression “cane toad” many times, Google will conclude that your article is about cane toads and their feeding. If your article has more of these words than another article written by someone else, Google may well conclude that yours is more relevant to the search term “cane toad feeding”, and place your site above the other. (See what I did there?).
Of course things aren’t as straightforward as a count of the number of words, and your search-results position depends on other factors as well, but this is a very useful method, and works well for me. I should probably also warn you (again) not to try and trick Google here. Use a word or expression too much, and you might be under suspicion — and Google will penalise your site or ban it as spam. My advice thus is: bear in mind the words that people will search for to reach your kind of content. Then use them often, and use them in expressions that are likely to appear in searches.
- Consider word weight and importance - Google gives more weight to elements on your page that are enclosed in title tags like h1, h2 etc. By using these tags you are saying: this text carries more weight. In the same way, Bold and Italics can signal that a word, expression or sentence is important.
- Consider word positioning - The closer to the top the more important. If you start a paragraph, the closer a word is to the start of the paragraph the more weight it has, etc. It is better to say “The feeding habits of the cane toad – is today’s topic” rather than “today’s topic is the feeding habits of the cane toad.”
I know it is very difficult to bear all these things in mind when writing, but after a while they become second nature. In some articles you pay them more attention, because you want to hit your niche harder, and in some you don’t, because you are writing for volume, or for fun.
It’s worth noting that this article may prove its own point in rather an unfortunate way, by attracting a lot of zoologist in search of the feeding habits of the cane toad. To them, I apologise. It’s just the way search engines work.
There are further writing tips for Google, and I might get back to them in a later article. For now though, thanks for reading.
UPDATE: To prove that I wasn’t just talking nonsense, search Google for the keywords ‘feeding habits kane toad’ by clicking here. Now re-read the article and you will see why this is.
Do come back to ThatDanny.com for the next article in the series (or subscribe to this blog to get notified when it is published).
SEO articles in this series:
How do I get my site into Google? - SEO Article #1
How to Write for Google - SEO Article #2
How do I get my site into Microsoft Live Search? - SEO Article #3
What’s a “NO FOLLOW” tag?
