Hard Work Gets You Organic Placement
There is no magic wand, no secret recipe, or for that matter special
protocol you should follow or buy to have your website appear in the top
unpaid search results on Google. In fact, do too much of optimization
for placement and you’ll run right into Google’s “over optimization”
filter and be dropped back as much as 50 to 100 pages in the search
results.
So what is a website owner to do? First off, the bottom-line is you
can’t scam or buy your way to top placement on Google.com. In this new
world of post Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, it is readable
natural content that Google wants; no keyword dense content, no heavy
use of keyword phrases in the heading and subheading tags, and certainly
no aggressive link building strategies.
Matt Cutts, the Google representative to my industry, says this about organic placement:
“Key phrases don’t have to be in their original form. We do a lot of
synonym work so that we can find good pages that don’t happen to use the
same words as the user typed.”
“People can overdo it [using meta tags and headings that are keyword
dense] to the point that we consider it keyword stuffing, and it hurts. I
would just make sure you do it in natural ways where regular people
aren’t going to find it stiff or artificial. That tends to be what works
best.”
“Never sacrifice the quality of your copy for the sake of the search
engines. It’s just not necessary. The next time you write a new page of
copy, test this approach to writing for the engines and see if you get
as good (or better) results than before. I’m betting you’ll be
pleasantly surprised.”
You can read the full article and interview that was done with Matt Cutts on SiteProNews. It is worth
a careful read. The article’s author goes onto state that she likes
mentioning a specific phrase only two times on a page and then sprinkles
in synonyms in a natural way in her content and Cutts has agreed that
he likes this approach.
The bottom line is that building keyword density and working in
keywords to headers, images, and links is now passe and even considered
spamming by Google. What used to work to get organic search placement
simply no longer works.
Twitter and Google+ Are Important
Because Google+ is a Google tool and is being integrated into every
Google property, to not be actively be involved in Google+ and +1′s,
which are part of Google’s new placement focus, is a missed opportunity.
Twitter links and activity are indexed and shown in Google’s search
results unlike those of Facebook. If you have to choose a social network
to be involved within this new world, choose Twitter over Facebook!
Why is Google+ So Important?
Based on this new focus for Google, you need to start flowing through
search and social activity into your Google+ and +1 bank. If you don’t
have accounts, Google can’t tie the activity to you specifically.
Let’s Talk About What Google+ and +1′s Are
Google+ is a social platform. It is not like Facebook but more like
Facebook and Twitter combined. However, it is much more important than
any of the social networks we know and use now.
You could consider Google+ like a voting and popularity network but
one that has the ear of Google. Anything you do on Google+ will most
certainly impact your website’s organic placement and Web Visibility in
the future. Google has said as much in their releases. Google has
additionally stated that it will be showing social results from your
Google+ network in their Google.com personalized search results.
What this means is that for people and businesses that embrace
Google+ early and start building their network now, there will be strong
benefits for their updates and links. This activity will be shown in
your own personal and expanded network’s search/social results.
+1′s are Google’s version of votes. If you like a page, like an ad,
like a blog post, like a Google+ comment, you vote it up using a +1.
What is crucial to understand is that a +1 is tied to your Google+
activity. These +1 votes will impact your visibility and placement on
Google in the new Google Search Plus Your World results.
Google Search Plus Your World Is the New Face of Google
In mid January, Google rolled out an important change to their search
index. They named it Google Search Plus Your World. In my industry we
call it Search Plus. Google stated that they will be using activity,
updates, Google+ activity, and +1 activity in the search results that
they deliver to your personally and to those in your Google+ network.
What is interesting is that even if you are logged out of your Google
account, Google is still tracking your activity. Of additional
importance is the announcement that the social related results that will
be shown in the Google.com index are personally selected for you and
WILL contain Google+ activity across your Google+ social network.
That means if you start building your network now, your information
and website could be appearing in search results for a very broad
network of readers and potential prospects. As this activity comes from
your personal network, just like a word-of-mouth referral, links to you
and your profile will most likely carry more authority and legitimacy in
the eyes of potential clients. Everyone weights a reference by a friend
about a business more than a written review found randomly on the Web.
This will be the real impact of Google+ and +1′s in the very near
future.
Why Is This So Important?
All of the information in this newsletter is important because the
business that is driving these changes is Google. Because Google owns
65% of the online search market, to be positioned well on Google means
taking full advantage of what Google considers important.
It is critical you understand that Google+ is not Facebook. Google
considers Google+ and +1′s integral to it’s new face of search and how
search results are shaped and delivered. These new Google offerings are
very important and should be embraced quickly and completely for your
future organic placement benefit.
Placement is More Than Twitter and Google+ – There Are Still Links to Factor In
Sorry, you can’t just stop with Twitter and Google+ and think that
you’ll garner organic placement, you’ve got to think about links too.
But smart links! For most clients the easiest way to build links
naturally (that is important to Google) over time is by blogging. Google
considers each blog post as if it were a new page on your website – but
a page that is on one topic – and so may easily place in the search
results for that topic.
If the page gets indexed, it can lead readers from your blog right
into your website and can even improve the stickiness of your website.
There is no downside, in my point of view, with blogging. It is not
unusual for a website that blogs three days a week to build 156 new
website pages and grow links to over thousand in a year.
Conclusion
I want to reiterate that there is no magic formula to getting organic search placement on Google.
What I do know is that Google likes content-rich authority websites
that have a large number of pages and have an older established domain
name.
Google likes a natural slow progression of links pointing to a
website and blogging works great for growing these inbound links slowly.
Google likes social exchange through Twitter and tweets are included in Google’s search index.
Google loves Google+ and Google +1 activity. In fact so much so, that
there is a special section in your site’s Google Webmaster control
panel where Google tracks these and even shows the search impact.
The bottom-line is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to grow
and build organic search placement, but there are still some very smart
things you can do if you follow what Google considers important.