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Top Google Rankings: Straight From the Horse’s Mouth

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top google rankings update

I'd love to have one of those...

Google recently held their second site clinic in London, UK.

I won’t bore you with the event details because, frankly, I don’t know them, but I did want to give you a summary of the discussed topics as they directly pertain to any site owner.

1. Meta Tags

Title tags and meta description tags are still important, yet widely ignored by many bloggers.

If you’d like to know more about utilizing those two to the fullest, read my free 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Ranking Optimization report.

As far as Google is concerned, you can completely ignore the meta keywords.

2. Heading Tags

Proper use of H1, H2, H3, etc tags helps Google determine the context of content on a page and also determine the priority of content in general and specifically your keywords.

For those of you who’d like to learn the proper structure of the home page and a post page, here they are:

What it should be for your home page - ideally:

  • H1: Blog’s name
  • H2: Your blog’s tagline - should be keyword-rich
  • H3: Your recent posts
  • H4: related content in the sidebar, like the heading of an “about” widget.
  • H5: Unrelated headings in your sidebar, footer, etc.

What it should be for your posts:

  • H1: post / page title
  • H2’s and H3’s: subheadings and sub-subheadings
  • H4: your blog’s name, and possibly related widgets
  • H5: same as above: sidebars etc.

Side note: if you want to check your own blog structure, just go to http://validator.w3.org/, add your URL to validate your code and make sure you check the “Show Outline” box - that’s what will give you your blog outline at the very bottom of your page.

3. Navigation

Structure your site logically for both users and search engines.

Don’t forget to link to other posts and pages within your blog - this helps your readers navigate your site and makes it more “sticky”, thus reducing your bounce rate.

Also, be sure to have a regularly updated Sitemap, which can be easily created on WordPress blogs via a plugin. I use Google XML Sitemaps plugin on my blog.

4. Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

Definitely something you need to know about and fix as much as you can.

Both were discussed at length in these posts:

5. Misspelled Queries

This is a popular suggestion by many SEOs - ranking for possible misspelled searches.

A couple of issues with that:

  1. In some cases, Google’s automatic spelling correction gets the job done for users by suggesting the correct spelling.
  2. It’s not a wise ideas to stuff your site with every imaginable typo and it’s even worse to try to hide them with CSS, or Javascript - as I am sure you are aware, or should be anyway, that such methods are in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

6. Site Speed

No matter where I go, Google is discussing site speed, and they did again at this past summit. It must be important. Duh.

Not as much as a ranking factor, although it is, but from a user’s perspective.

Users love fast websites.

To increase blog speed, here’s a helpful series of posts I wrote:

Marketing Takeway

Probably, nothing new for most of us here in terms of knowing about it.

But how about doing it?

The source for the article: Google Webmaster Central

 

ana hoffman top google rankings

32 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. Great tips on how to organize your blog. And you’re right, many bloggers ignore meta tags, including myself. Didn’t realize there’s something you can do (actively) to speed up your website, though i have noticed some blogs really load slowly and may even crash your browser.
    Always a pleasure reading your blog. very insightful. 🙂

  2. Didn’t really know about the h1, h2 ect breakdown but many blog themes talk about this optimization. At least I should double check this now - HA

    Social influence still seems very very early and thus I’m not sure how much talk there is about it all. However this isn’t really something in the site owners control. But if the owner isn’t even engaging in social media than there is a high chance there will be no social activity related around a post. You’ve got to put things out there and increase your social footprint. I think social footprint is ultimately important for seo in the long run.

    I’ve worked on a number of these tips. Another important factor is to be active with your analytics and webmaster tools. If you’re oblivious to some trends and analysis, you’re going to be missing out on some massive optimization opportunities.

    Just my thoughts though.

    Scott

  3. This is priceless, Ana …

    “I won’t bore you with the event details because, frankly, I don’t know them…”

    Thanks for the highlights. I used the validation tool you suggested in the post. Holy wall of errors, Batman! I thought my site’s code was pretty clean until I saw this report. I’m just going to pretend I never saw it. 😉

    I noticed that on both my site and yours that the post titles are H2 tags instead of H3. I think that’s the way Thesis sets them up (not sure though). How much of an impact does it make with Google if we don’t follow the ideal suggestion above?

    • I think you are right as far as Thesis is concerned, Brad.

      However, on my site, both my blog name and tagline are in a header, so having my posts in H2 is OK.

      Ana

  4. Thanks for sharing these reminders, Ana. I do my best to implement them 🙂

    All the best,
    Mavis

  5. I also add meta keyword tag in all my blogs, Google some other search engine might consider it. Adding it wont take two minutes and the effect could be reaped as long as the site is live.

  6. Ana:.

    Heard from you some time ago that meta keywords held no water. So I believe you scooped Google. 🙂

    Thats’s why I throw generic KW’s in my meta KW area. It also helps prevent the scalping of my money words.

    Great post as usual<——random spam comment. 🙂

    Talk soon my Russian superstar,

    Lisa

  7. Ana,

    Thanks for the great tips, I wasn’t aware of proper usage of H tags either.
    I think you’ve given me a list of jobs to do this weekend…Optimization here I come.

  9. I love the breakdown of what the H1, H2, etc. tags should be on your homepage vs. a blog post. Most people talk about using them, but no one really tells you how. Great information!

    • I don’t think most people give it much thought, Kristi; however, there’s always a slight difference as to how we treat our headings depending on the page.

      Ana

      PS I love seeing more and more of you on my blog. 🙂

  10. Thumbs up for this great roundup Ana. It is really all here and the only thing that remains is for “us” to implement. No brainer there as SEO only works that way. I still do not understand why many continues to say that all that matters is to write quality content. To me that’s a given. Crap even with tons of SEO will take you anywhere.

    As for site speed, yeah, you are right, its all over the place and practical solutions are widely available. I seriously believe that it is amongst the top 10 ranking factors that Google is using nowadays. I might be wrong, but … There is always a but, right?

    • You’re right, SEO does work - but it’s no use getting all the people to your site and then leaving just as quickly. It’s the good quality content that keeps them there and brings them back again and again. 🙂

      • I still think that the best out of all SEO methods is to simply write good, linkable content. A friend of mine has a blog which gets thousands of uniques daily - he’s done absolutely no optimisation to it at all, uses a free wordpress theme, yet he ranks highly for some very competitive key phrases.

  11. Ana, You’re right, nothing much new for knowing it. For doing it - yes. I’m getting there. I’ll have to revisit heading tags and make sure they fit the criteria. You always have such great advice.

    I guess it makes sense to ignore the meta keywords, as long as the content is keyword rich. I still like to err on the side of caution.

    Thanks for keeping up on the newest.

    Connie

    • No problem with being cautious. The difference between success and failure is not knowing it, it’s about implementing it. All the best!

  12. A great list of things to be concerned about Ana. There is no better place to look for the “writing-on-the-wall” according to SEO than the wall where google is currently writing it.

    These are all great factors and I would assume, since Google is spending the time to talk about them, they will be the ones that will become the increasingly more important factors as time progresses.

    • Did you mean to be funny in your first paragraph, Steve? Because it was very clever-funny.

      Right you are, of course.

  13. Google still have rules in place from back in the 90’s and still people can’t get then right..if you listen to Google then you can rank higher..trust me..

    “Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”

  14. Ana

    Excellent summary.

    Re: site speed. I’ve completed a lot of speed improvements on my blog recently. Although I have improved load speed by over 50%…I’m still not happy!

    I am seriously thinking of moving to a dedicated server.

    Andrew

    • I am with you, Andrew.

      I optimized a few months back, but as my blog grows, etc. it seems like I need to stay on top of my speed at all times. Who has time for that?

      Let me know if you choose one; I’d like to check them out.

      Ana