Getting started with Google

Optimizing Your Website for Google

• Think about the phrases people would use to search for your products. These keywords will drive everything from optimization to sales. An important point to remember is to include keyword phrases within the visible copy
  on your site.
  
• Keywords should appear in the following areas: URL, domain name, title tag, description meta tag, keyword meta tag, image source, alt text and links to site pages.
  
• Keyword density is also a factor Google emphasizes. Roughly 15-20 percent of all the words on your site should be keywords.
  
• Focus on steadily gaining links from quality, related websites is the best way to achieve and maintain top rankings in Google. Targeted, relevant, high-quality inbound links are the kind you want to be acquiring.
  
• Copy should contain useful information that clearly and accurately describes your content. Routine updates, alterations and blogs can have a positive influence as Google measures the ratio of old pages to new pages.
  
• Excessive use of affiliate or reciprocal links will have a negative impact. Google recommends no more than 100 links appear on any given page.
  
• Every page within a site should accessible from at least one static text link. Build a concise sitemap to guide users toward important parts of the website.
  
• Routine maintenance to ensure all links are working and none link out to "bad neighbourhoods", which are both extremely harmful to rankings.
  
• Since the Google crawler does not recognize copy within an image, use text to display important names, content, or links.
  
• Change your title and description to a keyword rich format.
  
• Use extensions other than .com, which are highly scrutinized while .edu, .org and .info are safe options.
• Make sure that your page TITLES and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate