SEO positioning (Search Engine Optimization) remains one of the keys to increasing traffic to our Website. It helps to have greater visibility and increase the reputation, visits to our Web, and, in short, more excellent sales for our services and products.
New changes in Google’s algorithm last year have changed the positioning of most websites in recent months, which has caused a fundamental shift in how we prepare our Websites for search engines.
Here are ten tips to get better positioning on Google: the largest search engine with a market share of 98%. In this collection of advice and recommendations, we will focus on semantics, competition, and site design, among other factors.
1. Observe competition: When we start from 0 with our positioning strategy, we must analyze what our competitors have done so far. Please take advantage of their time invested in positioning their services to see where they are healthy, how they are placed, see their weaknesses, and improve our positioning. Investigating what keywords our target audience is looking for is paramount. We will have to analyze which keywords could describe our service or company and what alternate or erroneous keywords can be used. We might also be interested in using, for example, spelling mistakes in the keywords: v / b, omitting the letter H. Spelling errors that our competition may not have thought of applying and which might interest us in the position. After all, people make misspellings by typing, and all of them could be our potential clients. Analyze which keywords the competitors use and which we would be interested in using and differentiate ourselves from them. See if it is worth the effort to use our time in positioning words that are already used or use other Keywords that are less used but with which we could gain higher visibility and clicks.
2. Use semantics in our Keywords: The new algorithm of Google emphasizes semantics to understand the keywords and to position ourselves. We must keep in mind that people have created Google, and therefore, we must place ourselves in the face of Google’s robots in a way that anyone could understand. We must consider aspects of the meaning or interpretation of all our words, expressions, or formal representations, just as any company manager would employ to look for the service or product he needs.
3. Clean up our HTML code: We need to simplify our HTML code so that Google robots can easily interpret the content of our Site. Also, use CSS stylesheets to streamline fonts and different styles externally to our HTML content. At this point, if we do not have programming skills, we may find it somewhat complex. If we count on the company with a web developer, applying the recommendations will be much easier.
4. Using short URLs: We must use short and static URLs. In this way, Google will reward us with more excellent positioning. Design the different levels of the URL quickly and include the keywords we want to position, taking into account the semantics at all times.
Company.info/virtualization-server
Instead of:
Company.info/45/12/content/server/april/101898346849.html
Apply the same idea to the internal links of the Web. This way, we will provide semantics to the navigation through our Site, applying it in the name of the categories, sub-categories, sections, sub-sections, etc.
5. The robots of Google have trouble reading and indexing files containing languages such as Javascript, Flash, buttons, popups, etc. Let’s try to use a more friendly code language as another factor that positively positions us. Google just does not read or bother about it. Previously it was beautiful to have flash animations on our corporate page, but today it is preferable to opt for other priorities.
6. The size of the files. We must remember that search bots have trouble reading files that weigh more than 150kb because of the extra time they need to read them. This could penalize us at the moment of positioning ourselves. We must expedite the search for robots on our Site.
7. Broken links and HTML validation. Google can penalize with a wrong positioning to those Webs with broken links in its web structure, and we have to watch the famous 404, correct them and address them correctly. Also, we must validate our HTML code and CSS style sheets according to the rules laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
8. Take into account the reading order of the Robots. We must consider the order in which search engines cache our web page. The < Title> is the first element to be read, recommended to 60 characters maximum, so we have to look for the best Title as if it were an email subject. Following is <Description> that must be accurate and approximately 150 characters, easy to understand, and thought again for the semantics. Not only will it help us to position ourselves, but to have a higher click-through ratio and visits.
9. Use our content to position ourselves. We must design our text and image content to set us like any other element. Use the headings H1, H2 … with the keywords we want to position. Use bold, italic, or underlined text to accentuate our keywords in the text. Google will give more importance to those words and allow us to position ourselves better.
We must also add a title to our images with words or keywords we want to ensure that all contain an attribute (ALT) to help us position ourselves and offer an alternative text that is also tuned to our positioning. Use the same idea with hyperlinks, use keywords in the link, and use them in your tags to continue to focus on our keywords.
10. Avoid hidden text, copied or duplicated text, and avoid repeating Keywords. In the same way that we perform a series of tactics to position ourselves, we must also avoid doing some others, such as putting hidden text (put a text full of Keywords with a color equal to the background to make it invisible). Avoid copying text from other web pages: Google does not like to find plagiarized or copied text, and avoid repeating over and over again the Keywords in the written text as a way of over-positioning. We should seek a balance of no more than 6-8% of the full text.
As we have seen, each action adds up a total that allows us to gain positioning. We have to plan our SEO actions not for robots but for the people visiting us. We have to make our Website semantics to tell Google how we want it to describe and position us. After all, Google has been created by people, and for them, we must design our Site.
We must not forget that positioning has more art than science, so the small changes we make on our Web must be further analyzed for positive or negative results. Practice and experience will help us create a more humane website to be well-positioned.
