If you want to get your site to the top of the organic listings and finally gain Google’s love and respect, it’s important that you understand something: It’s not easy. Google is no floozy.
She rates websites with a complex algorithm, evaluating the relevance of each one, and carefully ranking them in order. The top listings are the ones that will make her look best in public—the ones that show people she really knows what she’s doing—the ones she finds the least embarrassing.
Contrary to popular belief, this competition is not based on looks. Google is much too refined for superficiality. In fact, she considers it a major turn off when a site makes her wait while it gets ready.
She prefers the simple intellectual…the site that will teach her everything she wants to know, and still have her wanting to visit another page. She likes it when a site uses her language and the language most frequently used by her friends–even if they do make common spelling errors every once in a while. Little things like this really show that it cares and wants to be with her.
Google takes the information retrieved by little web-crawling robot spiders to decide which sites are relevant enough to be in her entourage, and if so, where they’ll stand in line. It’s important to know that only certain attributes of a website catch the spiders’ attention, while other features—no matter how handsome–are completely invisible to them.
So…don’t be invisible. Make Google’s heart pound with:
- Relevancy: What search terms do you think a visitor would give her to find you? Are you showing them off everywhere you can?
- Link Building: Do the other sites think you’re cool? Would they recommend you? You can bet she’ll ask around.
- Fresh Content: She gets bored so quickly. Don’t let yourself become old news; keep her coming back for more.
- Functionality: Don’t be difficult. She doesn’t have time for that.
- Traffic: Are people visiting you, or are you a loner? (Note: She doesn’t go for the shy type).
- And much much more…