Search Engine Optimization for Google Sites Best Practices for Webpage Content and design IntroductionEven though this is a search engine optimization guide you need to concentrate on what your users (visitors) need and want from your site. If you make a page easier to find for a user you also make it easier to find for search engines. Back to the Table of Contents Create unique, accurate page titlesA page title tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. Ideally, you should create a unique title for each page on your site. Google Sites will automatically suffix your Site Name to the page title your web browser uses and search engines see, so may not need to put in as much as you think. You can edit the page title whilst editing the page: you find it at the top of the page e.g. this page's title is "Google Sites SEO Guide" which you see at the top of this page, but in the browser's title bar you see "Google Sites SEO Guide - Google Sites & Google Apps Help - steegle.com" The - Google Sites & Google Apps Help - steegle.com added to the end is my Site Name. Titles for deeper pages on your site should accurately describe the focus of that particular page and also might include your site or business name. You can see on my site any of the Google Sites how tos start with "Google Sites - " to clearly indicate what the page focuses on. The only time I have not done this is for this page and my Google Sites FAQ page, so when someone searches for Google Sites FAQ I get in the top 6 results. Good practices for page title
Back to the Table of Contents Make use of the "description" meta tagSummaries can be defined for each pageA page's description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about. Whereas a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph. Google Webmaster Tools provides a handy content analysis sectionthat'll tell you about any description meta tags that are either too short, long, or duplicated too many times (the same information is also shown for your Page Title). To make use of the meta description tag on your Google Site use the More button and then Page settings. In the Page description box enter a brief overview of the page's offerings. For more detailed instruction on how to add a Page Description to a Google Site see Google Sites - Page Description - Meta Description Tag & Snippets What are the merits of description meta tags?Description meta tags are important because Google might use them as snippets for your pages. Note that we say "might" because Google may choose to use a relevant section of your page's visible text if it does a good job of matching up with a user's query. Alternatively, Google might use your site's description in the Open Directory Project if your site is listed there (learn how to prevent search engines from displaying ODP data). Adding description meta tags to each of your pages is always a good practice in case Google cannot find a good selection of text to use in the snippet. The Webmaster Central Blog has an informative post on improving snippets with better description meta tags. Best PracticesAccurately summarize the page's contentWrite a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result. Avoid:
Use unique descriptions for each pageHaving a different description meta tag for each page helps both users and Google, especially in searches where users may bring up multiple pages on your domain (e.g. searches using the site: operator). If your site has thousands or even millions of pages, hand-crafting description meta tags probably isn't feasible. In this case, you could automatically generate description meta tags based on each page's content. Avoid:
Back to the Table of Contents Improve the structure of your URLsCreating descriptive categories and filenames for the documents on your website can not only help you keep your site better organized, but it could also lead to better crawling of your documents by search engines. Also, it can create easier, "friendlier" URLs for those that want to link to your content. Visitors may be intimidated by extremely long and cryptic URLs that contain few recognizable words. Google Sites automatically makes the page URLs from the title you enter, but sometimes these can be inappropriate. I have fallen into this trap with probably one of my most important pages, my Google Sites FAQ - its URL follows: As you can see it's not good and you're probably asking "how did I let it happen"? When I created the page I made the title "Google Sites - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" so Google Sites used this to make the page URL "googlesites-frequentlyaskedquestionsfaq" (it removes the spaces and parenthesis, keeps the hyphens and sets everything to lowercase). URLs like these can be confusing and unfriendly. Users would have a hard time reciting the URL from memory or creating a link to it. Also, users may believe that a portion of the URL is unnecessary so they might leave off a part, breaking the link. Why haven't I changed it? I didn't change it as it's been linked to in many places, so changing it will mean the pages with links to it won't work. So once you save a new page the first thing you want to do is change the URL to something more appropriate, so here's another example from my site:
Google is good at crawling all types of URL structures, even if they're quite complex, but spending the time to make your URLs as simple as possible for both users and search engines can help. Good practices for URL structure
Back to the Table of Contents Make your site easier to navigateThe navigation of a website is important in helping visitors quickly find the content they want. It can also help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important. Although Google's search results are provided at a page level, Google also likes to have a sense of what role a page plays in the bigger picture of the site. All sites have a home or landing page, which is usually the most frequented page on the site and the starting place of navigation for many visitors. Unless your site has only a handful of pages, you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your landing page) to a page containing more specific content. Do you have enough pages around a specific topic area that it would make sense to create a page describing these related pages (e.g. root page -> related topic listing -> specific topic)? Do you have hundreds of different products that need to be classified under multiple category and subcategory pages? Don't forget to use the Navigation sidebar box that allows you to display links to any of your pages. If you want to categorise you pages you can add multiple navigation boxes with different titles. To edit the Navigation box use the Edit Sidebar link and then the edit link on the navigation box. Google Sites provides a sitemap (lower-case), a simple page on your site that displays the structure of your website and consists of a hierarchical listing of the pages on your site and a list view. Visitors may visit this page if they are having problems finding pages on your site. While search engines will also visit this page, getting good crawl coverage of the pages on your site, it's mainly aimed at human visitors. An XML Sitemap (upper-case) file, which you can submit through Google's Webmaster Tools, makes it easier for Google to discover the pages on your site. Google Sites automatically creates and updates an XML Sitemap for you: for more information on how to use Google Webmaster Tools with Google Sites see my article - Google Sites - Get Found in Google Search Also, Consider what happens when a user removes part of your URL - Some users might navigate your site in odd ways, and you should anticipate this. For example, instead of using the breadcrumb links on the page, a user might drop off a part of the URL in the hopes of finding more general content. He or she might be visiting http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/news/010/upcoming-baseballcard-shows.htm, but then enter http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/news/010/ into the browser's address bar, believing that this will show all news from 010 (). Is your site prepared to show content in this situation or will it give the user a 404 ("page not found" error)? What about moving up a directory level to http://www.brandonsbaseballcards.com/news/? With Google Sites this is less of a problem, as if a user drops off part of a URL they will always find a page that exists (e.g. going from http://www.steegle.com/websites/google-sites-help to http://www.steegle.com/websites/ will work), however it is tempting to leave pages that will seldom be visited blank. Instead, consider putting a subpage listing gadget in as a standard practice, so that at least users will not get lost. Good practices for site navigation
Offer quality content and servicesCreating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content. Good practices for content
Back to the Table of Contents Write better anchor textAnchor text is the clickable text that users will see as a result of a link. This text tells users and Google something about the page you're linking to. Links on your page may be internal - pointing to other pages on your site - or external - leading to content on other sites. In either of these cases, the better your anchor text is, the easier it is for users to navigate and for Google to understand what the page you're linking to is about. Good practices for anchor text
Use headings appropriatelyHeadings (found on the Format menu) are used to present structure on the page to users. There are three sizes of headings, beginning with "Heading <h2>", the most important, and ending with "Minor heading <h4>", the least important. Since headings make text contained in them larger than normal text on the page, this is a visual cue to users that this text is important and could help them understand something about the type of content underneath the heading text. Multiple heading sizes used in order create a hierarchical structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your document. In Google Sites when you use headings properly you can then use the Table of Contents gadget to generate a list of page navigation links automatically, from the headings on the page. For more information about Tables of Contents see my how-to: Google Sites - Table of Contents. Good practices for headings
Back to the Table of Contents Optimize your use of imagesImages may seem like a straightforward component of your site, but you can optimize your use of them. All images can have a distinct filename and "alt" attribute, both of which you should take advantage of. The "alt" attribute allows you to specify alternative text for the image if it cannot be displayed for some reason. Why use this attribute? If a user is viewing your site on a browser that doesn't support images, or is using alternative technologies, such as a screen reader, the contents of the alt attribute provides information about the picture. When you insert an image into a Google Site you can add the alternative text: under the image selector and browser/choose file button you can see the Alt text (optional) box: Unfortunately if you need to change the alt text, or wish to add to an image inserted some time ago, Google Sites does not offer a tool to edit/alter alternative text without editing the HTML (at the time of writing). To edit the HTML navigate to your Google Sites page, use the Edit Page button and then use the HTML button in the edit bar. Once the HTML editor opens you need to find your image: the image will always appear in a "img" tag that looks something like this: <img src="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/images/sites_35.gif" border="0"> To add the alternative text you want for the image add "alt" attribute, followed by an equals sign, open quotes, the text you want to appear and then close quotes to the "img" tag - see below for an example: <img src="http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/images/sites_35.gif" border="0" alt="Google Sites"> Another reason is that if you're using an image as a link, the alt text for that image will be treated similarly to the anchor text of a text link. However, we don't recommend using too many images for links in your site's navigation when text links could serve the same purpose. Lastly, optimizing your image filenames and alt text makes it easier for image search projects like Google Image Search to better understand your images. Good practices for images
Back to the Table of Contents Use site visibilityYou may not want certain pages of your site crawled because they might not be useful to users if found in a search engine's search results. If you do want to prevent search engines from crawling your pages, use the site visibility option to make certain pages either private or not searchable. In this case, go to the page concerned, click 'share'. You can then specify pages to be either publicly available to the web, available to anyone with the link, or private (only specific users can access the page and would need to log in with their Google account). Note: you will need to enable page-level permissions to customise different pages' visibility. Back to the Table of Contents Promote your website in the right waysWhile most of the links to your site will be gained gradually, as people discover your content through search or other ways and link to it, Google understands that you'd like to let others know about the hard work you've put into your content. Effectively promoting your new content will lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in the same subject. As with most points covered in this document, taking these recommendations to an extreme could actually harm the reputation of your site. Good practices for promoting your website
Make use of free webmaster tools
Back to the Table of Contents Take advantage of Google AnalyticsIf you've improved the crawling and indexing of your site using Google Webmasters Tools, you're probably curious about the traffic coming to your site.Google Analytics is a valuable source of insight for this. You can use these to:
For advanced users, the information Google Analytics provides comprehensive information about how visitors are interacting with your pages (such as additional keywords that searchers might use to find your site). For instructions on how to add Google Analytics to your Google site see my how-to: Google Sites - Adding Google Analytics. Back to the Table of Contents Helpful resources for webmasters
ORIGINAL ARTICLE LINK: http://www.steegle.com/websites/google-sites-howtos/seo-guide TAGS: #SEO, #SearchEngine, #bestpractices |
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