As I mentioned last week, I’m currently working on a guide on building your own business / blog website. Here’s a little sneak peak of some of the goodness it will contain, with a little reminder on the basics of SEO that we all need from time to time:
One thing all of us cyber-kids with dot com homes are aiming at is to get our individual little messages, our love and our art out into the world. For the benefit of both ourselves and everyone else. We want to be heard. We want to share the love. And we want to interact with like-minded individuals. In strictly boring super-geek talk it’s about optimising our sites to rank higher on google.
So I thought I’d share with you what I’ve learnt so far. Luckily it’s easier than it seems (otherwise I would have been long gone and scratching my philosophies on stone tablets instead).
1. Add lots of content.
High quality, lovely delicious content full of your art. This is because Google assumes that if one site has 50 pages and another has only 10, then the bigger website is more useful and should be ranked higher.
2. Keep changing the content.
This is why blogging regularly is so great. Google’s searchbots look at how often you refresh the content, not just how much you write. So make sure you add a new post at least a few times per month. Google will like you more for it. Weekly additions are the best.
3. Include video.
In the last year Google has been on the look out for sites that offer a richer visual experience, including and especially videos. Create and introduction video on the first page and add some instructional videos into your blog posts and your rankings will sky-rocket. (Im currently working on my own intro video. Exciting!)
4. Make the site fast loading.
This is a new criteria Google have started looking for. As websites get more complex, they become slower to load. and faster loading sites are ranked higher in Google.
5. Link to .gov, .org or .edu sites.
There was a time when just linking your site to lots of others guaranteed a high Google ranking, but Google have smartened up. (Damn!) Yes it’s of value to have links but it seems that not all links are equal. Some are considered more valuable than others especially government and education department sites so see if you can build a relationship and connect with some to increase your high and mighty ranking power.
6. Advertise on Google
They won’t necessarily admit this but there is evidence that Google will rank you higher if you advertise with them. Using Google ads also creates more links to you site of course.
There are so many other ways to work up that Google ranking ladder, which at time seems like a bit of a popularity contest, but if you follow the 6 tips above, you will be doing better than most websites in the great wide world of cyber-netting. Good luck with it my fine-feathered friends!
 
Image source.