Google sets its “eyes” upon billions of searches every single day.
And it connects those searches with the massive and growing network of websites that can potentially satisfy searchers’ needs.
Knowing how your site looks through the lens of Google can be a source of competitive advantage for you.
That’s because many folks out there know some SEO basics but don’t delve into the finer details of this crucial element of online success.
So let’s see how you can do the opposite and differentiate yourself as a result.
In the beginning, Google discovers your website
Google will find your website sooner or later and categorize the information there.
This is the process of indexing.
Google will index your website much quicker if you help it out a bit.
You can start doing so by creating a sitemap.
Fortunately, with content management systems such as WordPress and Wix, you don’t need to worry about it: they handle it for you.
Google pays attention to your title
What gets Google to get a feel for what your site is about is by looking at the titles (also known as title tags) of the different pages the site has.
Though Google can “see” your full title, its beginning matters the most.
That’s because its first 65 characters are what users will get to see when they search for the keywords they want to rank for.
Your title for each separate page must be unique and contain your keywords.
But be wary of keyword stuffing (unnaturally repeating the keyword to get ranking brownie points).
That’s a big no-no.
Google loves a good description
This is a tricky one.
Though Google doesn’t care about your page’s descriptions directly as a ranking factor, these descriptions do matter for SEO.
That’s because the more visitors you’ll get, the higher your chances of ranking.
And visitors get attracted to well-written intros to a page when they search for terms.
That’s why Google encourages writing a meta description for every single page.
Google has its way of checking out your images
While Google isn’t a human and can’t look at images like you and I do, it does have its unique set of “eyes.”
And those eyes are called alt tags.
It would be best if you gave Google a solid description of what the image is about.
Once again, you have a chance to place keywords smartly within alt tags.
Google is also ruled by content (hence it’s king)
Content is what makes Google’s efforts to serve searchers easy.
The more content in the proper context you have, the better your chances of making Google happy.
So don’t just think about keyword density.
Be conscious of “context density” also.
This practically means that whatever you write should be linked with your overall topic.
And that network of related terms can go super wide.
So get tons of quality relevant content in there!
