6 Google’s Guidelines For Bloggers Which Can Boost Search Engine Ranking

September 20, 2015 Blogging Guide,SEO

Google is the number 1 search engine used by billions of people all over the world. It is also the single most effective source of aggregated information coming from millions of sources. Through Google’s innovative techniques in searching the World Wide Web, people in need of information can easily find exactly what they’re looking for. Because of this, bloggers, advertisers, and webmasters aim to create websites that will rank high in Google Search results. Advertisers and webmasters apply the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to have a high ranking. Some would even hire companies to do the work for them, giving them an edge over individual bloggers when it comes to online visibility.

Bloggers, especially those who do not have a background on SEO, usually find it hard to compete with established advertisers and webpages. There is no need for bloggers to worry, though, as Google is very transparent when it comes to how they search and rank different websites. Here are some of the Guidelines For Bloggers from Google’s SEO Starter Guide to help bloggers be more visible in Google Search:

1. Provide relevant information and use keywords efficiently – Google’s web crawlers and algorithms are effectively designed to find websites that contain the information closest to what the user is searching for. It will then rank the pages according to their relevance to the search. Google defines relevance as the extent to which a page discusses the words that the user provided as search strings. It is important that these keywords are discussed in several areas of the blog post such as the title, the description, and the body. The content should also contain real information and not just a bunch of keywords; otherwise, that will be considered spam. The algorithms may not detect websites that deceptively use keywords, but Google also employs actual evaluators who do monthly website evaluations to rank the sites.

2. Provide original content with information based on several sources – Google responds to complaints sent to them under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). If they received complaints regarding a website content that violates the Act, they will remove the website from the Google Search results. It is thus crucial that bloggers provide unique content and cite their sources correctly.

3. Make other websites share the link to your blog – Links help Google find your blog, index it, and rank it. The Google crawler Googlebot uses links to assess how “important” a webpage is. Google defines importance as the number of times a site is referenced by other websites. Google’s PageRank considers importance and relevance when deciding how your content will appear in the Google Search results. The best way to make other sites link to your blog is to provide content that is helpful and would likely be shared by many people. Sharing your blog through social media and having other sites create a comprehensive review about your content will greatly help your blog get a high ranking.

4. Make your blog URL searchable – The Google crawler also considers the URL of a site when searching for the user’s desired information. Having a URL with words that describe your content will help your page appear in search results. Avoid lengthy URLs and be wary of your domain. If your domain had previously violated one of Google’s policies, it is likely that it will not appear in search results at all. It is best to have a new domain instead.

5. Note that words inside images are not recognized by crawlers – The Googlebot does not recognize text inside an image. If you want your images to be searchable, make sure that you use tags, descriptions, or words in your image URL.

6. Ensure that your page is easy to navigate – A simple and comprehensive website structure will not only help your visitors navigate your blog, it will also help Google search for your content. Even though the Google crawler searches on a page level, there is a risk that some of your content will not be found if the navigation takes too long. Provide links to your pages in the homepage to make it easier for Google Search to find your posts.

Google also rolled out their “Mobile-Friendly” update in April this year. This is to provide solutions to multiple websites which do not appear when searched using the Google app. You can test if your blog is mobile-friendly by taking the Mobile-Friendly Test in Google’s developer website.