Raising your Web site rankings

February 24th, 2006 | Category: Heidi's Entries,Tips and Tricks
written by: Heidi Cool

Web Development Blog ranking on Google

People often ask me how they can raise the rankings for their Web sites. Typically I explain, that while many algorithms are involved, the major factors include:

  • The number of Web sites that link to your site
  • The relevance of those Web sites linking to your site
  • The quality of your content
  • How you present key terms— using headers rather than bolded text for key points

Today—thanks to Brian Gray at e3 Information Overload—I discovered a great article by Google's quality engineer, Matt Cutts, that quite clearly explains how Google collects and rank results.

I urge you to read this yourself, but I think it's also worth reviewing some of these issues here.

Getting other sites to link to yours

Primarily this is a matter of quality content. If you are presenting the best information on topic X, then others with sites relating to topic X, will provide a link to your site for more information. How will they find out about your site? Some will find it through search engines (assuming you already have a relatively high ranking) and word of mouth. Others will find out because you tell them.

You can do this by including your site address on all printed and e-mailed correspondence, including it in newsletters and press releases, on posters, flyers, and your business cards. This sounds obvious, but it is amazing how often people forget to include their Web site in their everyday communications. Try this simple test. Take your business card out of your wallet. Is your department/organizations's Web site printed on it? Is the main Case Web site printed on it? If it is not, then make sure you add it next time you order cards. Also make sure to include it in the signature on the bottom of your e-mail.

In addition to spreading general awareness of your site, you will sometimes want to ask to be included on a specific site. I get such e-mail requests all the time. Most are in the vein of "your site is really cool and I think you would benefit by linking to my site about wholesale frozen prawns." Given that the Case community isn't clamoring for such information I delete most of these.

But sometimes I get a very specific and reasonable request. Recently the Webmaster at RTA sent me some updates to RTA links I was already publishing. He also suggested that I add a particular link to the train paragraph on http://www.case.edu/visit/map/dir.html. I did just as he asked—for the following reasons.

  1. The information was factual and of likely interest to my target audience of people visiting Case.
  2. He was quite specific, noting not only the page on which the link belonged, but the paragraph. This made it very easy to quickly determine that his suggestion was solid.
  3. The request included his quite logical reasons for making the suggestion

If you do your research—choosing sites that would benefit by linking to your site—ask politely, give specific reasons and pages, then you will probably find that most people will agree to your request.

Make proper use of headers to highlight your major points

When you make a word or phrase bold, it gives a visual clue to the sighted reader that this information is important, but it doesn't mean a thing to the indexers. When you put the same word or phrase in a header it lets the indexers and other programs know that this information is of a higher priority than the words in your regular paragraphs. On this page the name of the site, Web Development Blog, is an <h1> meaning that it has the highest priority. The title of this entry is an <h3> and the subheads are <h5>'s.

When Google indexes this page it will be quite clear—from the information in the headers—what topics are being covered. When using headers you should also consider your wording. While my header phrasing is quite casual, I made certain to include the terms most appropriate to this discussion.

Original, relevant, high-quality content

I've discussed this before in other posts, but the bottom line is to make sure you are offering something worth reading. If your site on albino bunny rabbits includes the same old stuff I've seen before I will neither read it, nor link to it. Nor will I bother with information that is incomplete, incorrect or irrelevant to my particular concerns about bunnies.

Proper spelling

Incorrectly spelled words don't make the rankings unless a user is searching for the same incorrect spelling. We're all human and we all make mistakes, so after running spellcheck, have someone—who hasn't already read your material—read through it for you. A fresh pair of eyes will catch things that you might miss. I bring this up, because my fingers are quite capable of hitting the wrong keys as well.

Sometimes they will do this when I'm performing a google search. When that happens I notice two things. 1—Google usually asks me if I meant something else, 2—Google presents me with a list of sites including that same error. This is a smaller list than the correct one, which makes it easier to search through, but it is also suspect. Despite making the same exact typo myself, I am now liable to doubt the quality of the sites I find in this list. There may be some fine sites here, but I won't see them because I'll redo my search with the correct spelling.

Put it into practice

I could continue this article with discussions of metatags, key words, etc., but such nuances and tricks aren't as relevant as the general principles we've covered today. We'll discuss those another time. For now, if you want to improve your rankings, Google your site, then review it to see how you can apply these principles to improve your position. After making any changes you will need to wait a week or two for the indexers to catch up, but when they do, you should see some improvement.

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44 Comments »
  1. Another point worth mentioning for people at Case is to have your website only listen as '.case.edu'. Having it listen to both .cwru.edu and .case.edu is detrimental to rankings. Some more technical ways to improve search rankings involve using proper HTTP status codes and (if you want to target Google), use a Google Sitemap, which is a dynamically generated list of all the files in your site and when they were last updated. This article offers some insight as to why search engines love the Case Wiki. Great find!

    Comment by Gregory Szorc — February 24, 2006 @12:35 pm

  2. Great points. Regarding case.edu vs cwru.edu it's particularly important for us to check all of our internal links and make sure they are using case.edu rather the latter. A google search of site:case.edu brings up 1,310,000 results while site:cwru.edu brings up 752,000. While some of these are redundant some are not. If someone is doing a search on the Case website, which uses a case.edu search parameter, they will miss the pages only indexed under cwru.edu.

    Comment by Heidi Cool — February 24, 2006 @1:29 pm

  3. Agreed 100%. I can never stress enough about the importance of tags

    Comment by Craig — March 14, 2006 @8:13 pm

  4. Very helpful post! Thank you.

    Comment by arvin — March 16, 2006 @6:36 pm

  5. I have put a link to the UCITE blog on the UCITE home page like you recommended. But I am reluctant to put my personal blog URL on the signature file for my Case emails or to put it on my business cards because the things I write on my blog are highly opinionated and I am not sure if it is appropriate to imply that they have any official standing. Although my personal blog is also on the Case blog server like the UCITE blog, it somehow feels to me like I should minimize the institutional connection. What do you think?

    Comment by Mano Singham — March 17, 2006 @10:09 pm

  6. Mano, I agree with you regarding your personal blog. While it is highly educational and thought-provoking it is a reflection of your views rather than the university as a whole. If you have a separate e-mail for home/personal use, you might want to include it there, but not in your Case e-mail signature. Of course, as Case's most active blogger—receiving hundreds of hits per day—you are in pretty good shape from a marketing standpoint. Out of curiosity I also just did a google search on your name. Your blog shows up as the first entry of 32,600!

    Comment by Heidi Cool — March 20, 2006 @12:47 pm

  7. Good information. Content is so important. If you publish quality information traffic will come your way. Too often today weblogs are little more than links to other news sources. In addition to providing a link to a NYTimes.com article you might want to add your personal view of the story. A regular blogging schedule also helps. People will link to your site after they establish a relationship with your blog. If you publish sporatically it is less likely that you will have regular readers. Regular readers to a blog are more likely to link to that blog. Realize that it takes time to build up a pagerank and readership. Keep blogging. If you write useful information everything else will take care of itself.

    Comment by dave — May 10, 2006 @3:17 pm

  8. Excellent points. Alas the regular blogging schedule is something I've yet to manage. Your point about linking to other material in your blog is immportant. I often see blogs that include a quote and a link, but they never explain why. I usually want to know what it was about the story that compelled the person to post it. Even a sentence or two will suffice so long as it explains why the blogger felt this was important.

    Comment by Heidi Cool — May 17, 2006 @5:43 pm

  9. Great article Heidi, and thanks for the link to the "How does Google collect and rank results?" page. It should be a must read for every new webmaster and I will make sure it will get posted somewhere on our website. We have developed a nice SEO training section and I will point a link back to this blog posting.

    Comment by Joel Katona — July 20, 2006 @10:50 am

  10. Good article and important tips to incorporate. Heidi, also I would like to know if article submission helps to improve ranking.

    Comment by Webmaster — October 4, 2006 @3:44 am

  11. Great Artical. this document(http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors - represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results).

    Comment by ????? ????? ?????? — April 18, 2007 @8:03 am

  12. I would further stress the importance of the page's title and an appropriate call to action in optimization, describing the content of the page.

    Comment by Search and online marketing blog — April 23, 2007 @10:19 pm

  13. Fantastic read, came across this by chance in a google search. I have just started a blog myself and have some new found inspiration.

    Comment by Belinda — April 24, 2007 @5:21 am

  14. Heidi, good writeup and these are the sorts of things that will always work. Building real content and finding other people on the net who might enjoy what you have to say. I also want to second the link posted to seomoz.org, they have a lot of quality information and they are quite effective at promoting their content. They also do a good job of using smart web design and really making their pages look professional which helps with the credibility and making a page link worthy. Michael @ SEOG.net

    Comment by Michael @ SEOG — May 11, 2007 @11:51 am

  15. Excellent write up. The article by Matt Cutts was gold. I recently came across another stating the changes to the Google algorithm on Search Rankings News It talks about the patent documents filed by Google in April 07 and their implication. Interesting read..

    Comment by Ron — May 14, 2007 @9:53 pm

  16. Heidi, good writeup and these are the sorts of things that will always work. Building real content and finding other people on the net who might enjoy what you have to say. I also want to second the link posted to seomoz.org, they have a lot of quality information and they are quite effective at promoting their content. They also do a good job of using smart web design and really making their pages look professional which helps with the credibility and making a page link worthy. +1 and best article

    Comment by zonenoktaorg odullu seo yarismasi — May 19, 2007 @4:14 pm

  17. Good article for all webmasters. Thank you

    Comment by Sometricks — May 22, 2007 @9:26 am

  18. In responce to a question asked my member "webmaster" i also would like to know this. "also I would like to know if article submission helps to improve ranking." I have saw mixed reviews on this on the net and would like to hear from someone who could enlighten us on this, as i for one own my own article site, thanks.

    Comment by Louis — June 13, 2007 @5:58 pm

  19. Good points. Good and quality content plus some kind of promotion will do it. Thanks.

    Comment by Digital Street — June 21, 2007 @6:01 am

  20. Thanks for this great information.

    Comment by Search Engine — June 23, 2007 @11:28 pm

  21. Great stuff, Heidi, as usual. I'm going to have to print this out and study it more closely, as well as follow up on the links you've included.

    Thanks!

    Jamie Clarkson
    Cool Marketing Products Blog

    Comment by Honest Marketing Reviews — June 25, 2007 @2:10 am

  22. Good content and promotion is important but, i think a good design is a MUST.

    Comment by Art Guy — June 26, 2007 @1:54 am

  23. You have presented a concise overview of the fundamentals of SEO. Although there are many other other techniques available to improve search engine rankings you have presented a good summary of some of the most important.

    Comment by Improve Search Engine Rankings — July 19, 2007 @11:30 am

  24. Great article and agree with the post concerning seomoz - true leaders in the industry. You mentioned continuing the discussion about meta tags - my recent, tested conclusions, http://www.navycs.com/blogs/bville.php/2007/07/10/meta_keyword_test_conclusions

    Comment by TomG — August 3, 2007 @7:18 pm

  25. Quite interesting points, thank you :) As i am trying hard (too hard maybe) to understand why my essaouira self catored apartments vacation rentals web site fails to be on top pages in google. All help is mostly welcome :)

    Comment by Paul in Essaouira Morocco — August 17, 2007 @8:20 am

  26. Nice article. In regard to title tags I found that it makes quite a difference. Recently implemented php script that adds title tags to dynamically generated pages. Search engine results have changed dramatically.

    Comment by Free Classmates — August 22, 2007 @12:18 am

  27. When Matt Cutts speaks we all listen. =) The proper use of header tags and keyword density is essential. Remember also that the more high quality incoming links the better, SEO Moz has a great page strength tool that can help calculate those incoming links.

    Comment by Online Marketing Services — October 3, 2007 @6:51 pm

  28. I recomend "SEO ELITE" program for all the SEO experts. This program can save you a lot of time for the Search Engine Optimization give you detailled stadistics in seconds.

    Comment by Jean — November 16, 2007 @7:33 am

  29. Good information. I am always amazed at the little things you can do to rank higher in google. I really like the part about tags. It seems obvious after I read that part but knowing google is looking at the tags to determine how relevant your whole page is helpful for future reference cheers Abunza

    Comment by Abunza — February 3, 2008 @3:24 am

  30. This is a great technique for new sites. An interesting way to get listed legally and white hat is to use the combination of video and article marketing. A simple video can be produced using only PowerPoint and windows movie maker. With keyword and web address placement in the title and tags you can virtually create pages of listings for a new brand in hours. An e-book SEOVideoGold explains this technique in detail. They even provide SEOVideoGold Proof of results.

    Comment by Pat Gunning — February 5, 2008 @5:15 pm

  31. Personally I am grateful that SEO has changed so much in the last 5 years. I remember getting on the internet back in high school and all the websites would have keywords written all over them. A site on "Blue Widgets" would have that terms probably 300 times on the page. Sure made for some ugly pages at the tops of the searches. Todays current SEO algorithms from companies like Google and Yahoo justifiably place more emphasis on in bound links, sure, there are still ways to manipulate this but the large picture places much more relevant sites at the top of the heap.

    Comment by Teen Driver Monitoring — February 19, 2008 @12:32 am

  32. Wow great stuff, thanks for the info looking forward to more great content.

    Comment by abunza — March 16, 2008 @2:05 pm

  33. Great info. I remember back in the day when excite was the search engine to be on and all you had to do is stuff your keywords in your page the same color as the background and make as many pages as you could a day and submit, submit, submit.

    Comment by Passport To Wealth — March 25, 2008 @2:18 pm

  34. Even though this is an old article, it still fully applies to seo and google rankings. I believe it's a combination of all, A good title, a proper description, quality content and of course links. I think this is a great article, and there should be a column on the left of this site showing your top articles. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others.

    Comment by small business loans — April 22, 2008 @12:33 pm

  35. common Misspells are sometimes a great way to increase traffic with little effort. sometimes stuffing a misspelled word, can actually drive some nice traffic to your website. Use one of the various keyword research tools and use their misspell feature. Just my tip. Mitch

    Comment by Mitch — May 1, 2008 @4:32 pm

  36. While misspellings may gain keywords, I wouldn't advocate using them. If you put SEO tactics above your content, you will do your readers a disservice. And while we all make typos now and then, if readers see a lot of them, they'll start questioning your writing ability.

    Comment by Heidi Cool — May 4, 2008 @4:29 pm

  37. Great info - I'm printing this out and keeping it as a reference. Thanks! -Jeff

    Comment by abunza training — May 5, 2008 @8:49 pm

  38. Heidi, this is true evergreen information, and in the field of SEO, where there appears to be so much change and uncertainty, the value of some basic stable data cannot be underestimated. Also, interesting to note that SEO does not necessarily equate to traffic. Good points in the comments--perhaps a little more technical, but proper internal linking goes a long way.

    Comment by Wholesale Product Sourcing — May 8, 2008 @10:46 pm

  39. Heidi, this is true evergreen information. In a field such as SEO, which can appear to be so uncertain and in constant flux, this is particulary important. These days, with web 2.0 in full swing, link acquisition and traffic are in some ways much easier to get than in years past.

    Comment by Wholesale Product Sourcing — May 8, 2008 @10:53 pm

  40. Yikes! Sorry about the near duplicate posting above! I thought the first had bogged and gone wherever it is that lost blog comments go. Many apologies.

    Comment by Evan — May 8, 2008 @10:59 pm

  41. Nice article.Quite interesting points, thank you :) . This article offers some insight as to why search engines love the Case Wiki. Great find!

    Comment by bed and breakfast rome — May 14, 2008 @5:06 am

  42. Hi, I have been reading this blog for some time now but never bothered to comment until today. Wanted to let you know that I am a fan and enjoy your work. Thanks

    Comment by BuseBechala — August 3, 2008 @12:30 am

  43. Great info. I remember back in the day when excite was the search engine to be on and all you had to do is stuff your keywords in your page the same color as the background and make as many pages as you could a day and submit, submit, submit. yahoo

    Comment by Frank — December 28, 2008 @9:43 pm

  44. [...] is the primary reason you find spam in your blog comments. Web developers know that their search engine rankings will rise if they can get more sites to link to theirs. One of the easiest ways for them to do that is to put [...]

    Pingback by » The Comments Conundrum | Web Development Blog: Heidi Adams Cool — March 30, 2009 @5:04 pm

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