• To rank well in Google, write good original content that your visitors will find valuable.
• Make sure the robots understand what information you consider to be the most important.
• Get other sights to link to your website.

Now this is very general and basic information, but it leads me to an interesting article called, “Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine“. It was written back in June 2007, but the information is still very relevant and if you have not read this article …Google allowed a reporter from The New York Times to spend a day with Mr. Singhal and others in the search-quality team, observing some internal meetings and talking to several top engineers. There were many questions that Google wouldn’t answer. But the engineers still explained more than they ever have before in the news media about how their search system works…

So if you are curious about how Googles search engine works and you want some insight into Googles search engine,  read the article, Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine

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Ok …everyone should have a Google account and they should have activated the Webmaster Tools.

1. From the Dashboard, click the link to your website.
2. In the left sidebar click the Tools link.
3. There will be a few links under this option, you want the one that says, “set preferred domain”. Here you will choose either the non-www version or the www version. If you are not sure what version to use take a look at my post on Increase Your Link Juice.

I realize for some of you this is nothing new, but for those who are not familiar with this feature it is just one more thing to add to your seo arsenal.

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Before we begin lets check to see how our non-www and our www url is set up. To do this lets check the server headers. Go to this link – Check Server Headers – and enter your non-www into the field provided. Below you will see a response, typically of either a 200 ok, or a 301 permanent move, or a 302 temporary move. After you get the information on the non-www server header, do the same thing with the www url.

What you DON’T WANT TO SEE is a 200 ok for both the non-www and www. Why …well basically this result means your non-www and www urls are considered two different sites. Depending on how your website has been getting indexed (and how you have been submitting backlinks), this could be hurting your search results!

To make sure this is not hurting your website, you will want to concatenate your non-www with your www.

First, if you have been using a mix of non-www and www in your backlink campaign, stop! Pick one version. Which version should you use. Well …generally there is no benefit to using one or the other, non-ww vs. www. However, if you have been using a mix and you are unsure of which version to use here are a few suggestions to help make a decision.

1. Type in the non-www into your browser, using the Google Toolbar, check Googles PageRank. Next, type in the www version and check Googles PageRank. If one is higher that will be good to know before Rewriting your URL.
2. Next, type in your primary keywords that provide you with the most traffic. Find your listing(s) and note the url that is being linked; is it the non-www or the www??? Depending on the url that is indexed will also help you in making a final decision as to what version to use.

Once you made your choice on non-www or www you will want to do the following:

For a website on a Unix Server you will be changing (or adding) a htaccess file.  NOTE! -CAUTION you should have technical experience when changing a htaccess file. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

With that being said. If you are on a UNIX server create an htaccess file and add the following code making sure to replace the “yourwebaddress” with your website address:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebaddress.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourwebaddress.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The above code will change your “non-www” into your “www”. It will also tell the server that it is a permanent move; which is what you want in this case. If you want to keep your non-www as your primary, switch the RewriteCode.

If you are a Windows Server contact your host and ask them to make the change for you.

To make sure your Rewrite was done correctly use this link – Check Server Headers – Once you are on the site recheck your server headers. Depending on how you Rewrote the url(s) you will either see a 301 permanent move or a 200 ok.

As a result of doing this you will consolidate your links to one website giving you a bigger BANG for every link.

In the next post learn how to set your preferred domain in Google!

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On June 17, 2008 The New York Times reported,

…Nick Fox, a director of product management who looks after ads on Google’s search site, said the company was now testing the use of more search queries in its ad targeting. He did not describe how it was doing that. But Internet experts said that it was most likely using its cookies.

Let’s all step back for a moment and keep in mind exactly why we are allowing Google ( and other online companies) access to our personal information. Personally, I will sacrifice my user experience for a little privacy!

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Using Google and SEO here are some interesting comparisons between Barack Obama and John McCain.

In Google type in obama and search results are #155,000,000
If you put “obama” in quotes you get #156,000,000

In Google type in mccain and search results are #76,900,000
If you put “mccain” in quotes you get #77,300,000

Barack Obama has a splash page with his family.
John McCain does not have a splash page.

Barack Obama has optimized his title tag on his splash page as “Welcome to Obama for America”.
Barack’s home page title tag is “Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In | Home”

McCain has optimized his title tag as “John McCain – John McCain for president”

Prime real estate on Barack’s home page has a “Donate Now” button, followed with “Make A Difference”.
Prime real estate on John McCain’s home page has “Get Involved” followed with a “Contribute” button.

On Barack Obama’s splash page the meta keywords and description read:

meta name=”keywords” content “Senator Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign”
meta name “description” content=”Official Website of Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign”

On Barack’s home page the meta keywords and description read:
meta name “description” content “Official Website of Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign”
meta name “keywords” content “president, senator, illinois, chicago, barack, barck, barek, obama, 2008, 08, presidential, president, campaign, election”

On John McCain’s home page the meta keywords and description read:
meta name “description” content “John McCain 2008 – The Official Website of John McCain’s 2008 Campaign for President”
meta name “keywords” content “John McCain, McCain, mccain for president, John S. McCain, McCain 2008, president, presidential, 2008, campaign, election, straight talk, straight talk express, politics, political, john mccain, john mccain for president, senator john mccain, sen. john mccain, cindy mccain, john mcain, john mckaine, john maccane, jon mccain, john maccaine, john mccaine, mccain 2008, johnmccain.com, senator mccain, mccain 2000, mccain campaign, mccain hq, exploremccain.com, explore mccain, mccain exploratory committee, mccain exploratory”

And finally my last Obama vs McCain comparison between candidates is their use of the h1 tag:
On Obama’s home page the  <h1><a href=“http://www.barackobama.com/index.php”><img src=“http://www.barackobama.com/images/temp_flashheader.jpg” alt=“Obama for America”/></a></h1>

On McCain’s home page there is NO <h1> tag.

And the next president of the United States is …???

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1. Backlink campaign or Reciprocal link campaign .
2. Internal link structure.
3. Site structure.

So if a website is getting a decent page rank than the search engine optimization and search engine marketing campaign are working in unison. As a result website traffic will benefit from a continued effort. However, if a backlink campaign has been in place for 12 months and there is no PR it might be a signal that something is wrong. This might translate into lower website traffic.

Importantly, a site can be doing everything correctly (backlink, internal structure and site structure) and still not have a good PR. In this case, finding out why the PR is low might uncover valuable information that could lead to an improvement in some other area of the website. In the end this has the potential to improve the website’s traffic.

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The first tip is really easy, just submit your website to Google and Yahoo. Here are two links to help you:

Free submission to Google – submit to Google

Free submission to Yahoo – submit to Yahoo!

2. The next tip is to submit a XML sitemap. This tip is more difficultespecially for a novice, but it is very important. Basically, there are two types of sitemaps: html or xml. You should have both, but if you only have time for one, create a xml sitemap.

To help you, here is a link to a free sitemap generator- sitemap generator

You will have to do two more things:

1. Create a Google Account and activate the “Webmaster Tools”.
2. Upload your xml sitemap to your host, or root directory.

Here is a link to learn more about Google Webmaster Tools – webmaster tools

I hesitate in bringing up the xml sitemap because a novice user might get overwhelmed. However, I included the tip because it is very important! So if you want to learn a little seo, crating a xml sitemap is a good place to start. Here is a link to get you reading – Google Sitemap Info

If you want a xml sitemap but don’t want to mess with the process, it is worth hiring a web designer or webmaster. Sometimes the best tool in your tool box is your checkbook.

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Arguably, to understand Google Suggest we have to know two things: what do the numbers associated with the “results” mean and how is Google generating the suggestions? First I will define what “results” mean:

the results are the number of competing web pages for that specific keyword phrase.

Next, how are the suggested phrases generated and how is the order determined?

Suggestions are determined by keyword popularity. The more popular a phrase, the higher on the list that phrase will be positioned.

This makes sense when a list is analyzed. If you open Google Suggest and start typing you will notice the “results” are not determining the suggested keyword positions. For example, if you start to type “website desi” (“desi is not a typo, I’m only entering a partial word), you will see “website designers” is listed second with 29,200,000 results. However, “website designs” is listed fifth with 49,900,000 results. So why are keyword phrases with lower “results” higher on the list?
This is because the list is being generated off of keyword popularity; which are not the “results”. To support the keyword theory, I needed to find more information about each suggested keyword. I used Wordtracker and SeoBook to help determine their relative popularity. What I found supports the theory that the keyword’s popularity is responsible for the position. Specifically, “website designers” had #67 searches over the last 90 days, compared to “website designs”; which had #31 searches over the last 90 days. Therefore I feel this supports why “website designers” is above “website designs”; regardless of “website designs” having a higher “results” number.

These results can be duplicated for any query, so give it a try. I want to make two remarks when you test my theory. First, using “website design”, as an example. There are dozens of phrases more popular than “website designer”. However, Google Search is looking for the next phrase that starts with the original query, “website design”. So phrases like “business website design” and “web design” are ignored. Second, when you start typing in multiple keyword phrases be careful when analyzing your keyword popularity. Once you compete a word, you must begin to type the next letter of the following word. Otherwise, “website design” will generate results that are not consistent with keyword popularity. However, typing, “website design c” will bring up a new set of suggestions that are arranged according to popularity, because I started the next word.

So now that I have demonstrated how keyword phrases are responsible for order, I want to define the number associated with “results”. First if we consider how Google has historically defined and used “results”, we can put some weight in knowing Google has never used the term “results” to describe searches. To demonstrate how Google uses results, do a search in Google and look to the top right of Google’s output. In a light blue bar is, “Results 1-10 of about (number of web sites).

If this is not enough proof for you, go to SEObook’s keyword tools. Type in a sample search and go to the fourth column from the right, it is called “Google Suggest”. Under the Google Suggest column, go to a row with some results, click the G Suggest link. This will bring up another page. Note the second column is, “Competing Pages”. Take note of the number associated with one of the keywords and go back to Google Suggest –the “Competing Pages” number will match the “results” number in Google Suggest.

Another test would be to type in your name, or some other (presumably) small search phrase. In my case Gary Reichel has #187,000 results. First, I don’t think that many people are searching for me, or anyone with my family name, but it is a reasonable assumption that there are #187,000 web pages with the names Gary Reichel. Especially when you search Google Suggest and note the description tag related to many of the results. You will see Gary is bold, but it is another person with the last name Reichel that is bold. Second, if keyword popularity was associated with results, there would be no reference as to what time frame these results were compiled. Therefore, the “results” would be useless.

Considering Google Suggest in these terms, you may begin to see how it can be used to do a general keyword search.

That is, associating the results as a number of web pages competing for a keyword phrase, can now be compared to lower competition web pages (results) that have greater keyword popularity (higher in the list)! Suddenly we have a nice tool for search engine optimization.

I hope this clears up how Google Suggest is basing suggestions. As far as using Google Suggest for search engine optimization, I think Google has developed a nice tool for webmasters and optimizers to use as another method for researching keyword phrases.

If you don’t agree I would enjoy a comment to the effect. If you do agree, well …how about two comments, and a high-five.

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