How To Get Ready For The Google Update

There should be a Google Update shortly and here are some ways to prepare. Quality Content Content is king and this is the most important thing to provide. Place high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This content contains useful information, it will attract many visitors and webmasters will want to link to your site. Write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Place keywords on the site that people will probably type. Check your spelling and grammar. Duplicate Content Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or is appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin. If your site contains multiple pages with largely identical content, there are a number of ways you can indicate your preferred URL to Google. (This is called "canonicalization".) Pick a canonical (preferred) URL as the preferred version of the page. If you have similar Content, Google will choose which page to use in results. To do this, create a link as follows: Setting your Preferred Domain tells Google which version of your site's URL (http://www.yourdomain.com or http://yourdomain.com) you prefer. If you set your preferred domain as http://yourdomain.com, Google will treat links to http://www.yourdomain.com exactly the same as links to your preferred domain. To set the preferred domain for a site, click Configuration, and then click Settings. In the Preferred domain section, pick the option you prefer. Use 301 Redirects If a page can be reached in multiple ways—for instance, http://www.yourdomain.com, http:/yourdomain.com, or http://idxsearch.yourdomain.com—it's a good idea to pick one of those URLs as your preferred (canonical) destination, and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL. Indicate your canonical (preferred) URLs by including them in a Sitemap While Google is not guaranteed to use the URL’s submitted, it dos let them know which you consider most important. Have Other Sites Link to Yours Links help Google’s crawlers find the site and can give the site greater visibility in their search results. Google’s algorithms can distinguish natural links from unnatural links. Only natural links are useful for the indexing and ranking of your site. Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B. A link from a high ranking site is a vote for the site. A vote from an important site will make your site more important. Try to have links from relevant sites. If you have a Real Estate site, you won’t benefit from having links from a Car Dealer. You could be penalized. Remove Low Quality or Spammy Links Start removing links from low pagerank sites. The first step is to try and contact the webmaster. If that fails, the next step is to use the Google Disavow Tool. This is a two-step process. First, you’ll need to download a list of links to your site. Next, you’ll create a file containing only the links you want to disavow, and upload this to Google. Disavow links to your site: 1. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want. 2. On the Dashboard, click Traffic, and then click Links to Your Site. 3. Under Who links the most, click More. 4. Click Download more sample links. If you click Download latest links, you'll see dates as well. Relevancy This is more important as time goes on. Relevancy is the key to unlocking search potential. The goal is not to confuse Search Engines and visitors with irrelevant material. By providing relevant information, visitors will spend more time on the site and be more likely to return. Things to Avoid Never fill your page with lists of keywords, put up "crawler only" pages or attempt to "cloak" pages. Google considers those links and pages deceptive and if your site contains pages, links, or text that you don't intend visitors to see, Google may ignore your site. You don’t have to use a Search Optimization Service. How many of us get calls from 50 places a year guaranteeing a Top 10 position? I’ve never understood how this is possible, since there are only 10 spots. Then they’ll suggest irrelevant keywords, which no one looks for. Legitimate SEO firms can improve your site's flow and content. On the other hand, others use deceptive tactics to try and fool search engines. This could get the site banned. Don’t use images for important links, content or keywords. Since Google’s crawlers don’t recognize text contained in graphics, use the ALT attributes. Better Safe Then Sorry The Search engines have shifted their focus and we must also. It’s much easier to be prepared for the next update, then have to try to fix the problems after.