Google’s Top 9 SEO Basics

“When feel that SERPs going out of focus, return to basic of SEO.”

We begin by reading Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Design and content guidelines

1. Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
   • This means that Google looks at the content that it finds in terms of a hierarchy. In other words, Google arranges and interprets the information it finds on a scale ranging from “Most Important” to “Least Important.” Rather than let the search engine take a guess regarding the importance of the content that it finds, it is possible to tell the search engines, in no uncertain terms, this hierarchical importance. The title tag is either a one word, a one short phrase, or a one short sentence summary of the content on the rest of page. The meta description tag reinforces and compliments the title tag by fleshing out the goal, main idea, or purpose of the content. Not only do the <h1></h1>, <h2></h2>, <h3></h3> tags reveal the sequential hierarchy of the page, content and links found at the beginning of a page are considered more important than content and links found at the end of the page. A well constructed website for search engines is also a well constructed site for humans. Most people read from top to bottom, and from left to right. Therefore, it makes sense that the search engines will assign sequential importance along the same manner that humans read.
2. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
   1. Point number one suggested “hierarchical links,” and now point number two recommends no more than 100 “navigational links” on a single page. In other words, one of the hierarchical links should point to the page where the navigational links are found! Where more than 100 links must exist for the purposes of navigation, the use of a tree structure is implied. While point of main emphasis happens within the <h1></h1> tag, the tree structure occurs within the <ul></ul>, <li></li> tags.
3. Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
   • Information rich also means keyword rich. Remember that keywords and keyphrases are what human beings input into search engines with the expectation that the results are both meaningful and useful in relation to their keyword or keyphrase. These keywords or keyphrases ought to be further fleshed out when the human being lands on the content page from the search engine results page.
4. Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
   • Creating a “keyword rich” site does not mean creating a site that uses “keyword stuffing.” Keyword Stuffing is considered to be an unethical search engine optimization (SEO) technique. Keyword stuffing occurs when a web page is loaded with keywords in the meta tags or in content. In keyword stuffing, the keyword or keyphrase is found many times within the content, and adds no meaningful value to the content. The keyword or keyphrase occurs with much redundancy and exists for its own sake; the redundancy does not add further clarity or accuracy to the content.
5. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
   • While the search engines cannot read images, they can read how the images are described and referenced within the ALT and TITLE attribute. In the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog about Using ALT Attributes Smartly, Google references W3C recommendations:

   ALT: This attribute specifies a link to a long description of the image. This description should supplement the short description provided using the alt attribute.

   TITLE: This attribute offers advisory information about the element for which it is set.

   In another related point, since Google references W3C guidelines, then it is an obvious point that W3C guidelines should be followed as much as possible during the construction, design, and layout phases of a website. This means that all, if not most, .html pages should pass HTML Validation. And if CSS is going to be used, the style sheet should pass CSS Validation. Remember, the clarity and accuracy that Google wants pertains not only the content, but it also pertains to the presentation and coding of that content.

6. Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
   • Google is being redundant for a reason. According to a post on SEOBook, it was discovered that “Google currently places negligible, if any, weight on link titles.” However, the author continues on and asks a pertinent question: “Does the image alt text carry more weight?” His response: “In a word, yes.” Moreover, the Search Engine Optimization Journal reports, “The alt tag is almost the only clue search engines have for ranking images.” It makes sense, then, to use the img alt attribute whenever possible.
7. Check for broken links and correct HTML.
   • Correct Html? Some sites that fail HTML and CSS validation rank rather well in the search engines results pages (SERPs). I’m thinking here of Amazon.com. Amazon.com fails with 1822 errors! Nonetheless, passing HTML and CSS validation adds to a site’s clarity from a search engine’s perspective. The degree to which proper validation adds to this clarity is not certain at this time. Also uncertain is whether or not the search engines penalize sites failing to validate their HTML and CSS.
   • Broken links ought to return a status code of 404, not found. For a lumerical list of HTTP status codes and their meaning, consult a HTTP Status Codes Checker.
8. If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
   • Well, in an interview between a website and the Googlebot, it has been revealed that Google understands dynamic links.
9. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
   • Google is politely telling reputable sites and soon-to-be reputable sites not to send their URL to a link farm.