Google’s Best Practices SEO Guidelines Document

Wondering What Google Suggests About Properly SEOing Your Site?

You know that I write about many aspects of how to SEO your website or blog, and so many of my posts are geared to the beginner-to-intermediate level person who wants to learn more about SEO and/or handle the optimization of their site themselves. That’s fine and I love to help educate and give you proven ethical tips and techniques to achieve higher rankings.

Today I’m keeping it short and sweet. I thought I’d provide a copy of Google’s SEO guideline recommendations. I hope you are aware that Google brings all of us the bulk of our organic traffic – so we really must pay attention to what Google approves of, and doesn’t approve of, as far as optimization practices are concerned.

We don’t want to do anything that will send up a red flag to Google which will make them ignore our site. As example, are you aware that using an “autogenerated SEO” program is a big no-no as far as Google is concerned? As a matter of fact, they state:

Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google. (Source page: Webmaster guidelines.)

In addition, though not stated in the above quote, it is a known fact that Google ALSO frowns upon automated programs that fill your content pages with targeted keywords and that optimize pages using their so-called “built-in expertise”. Really. Don’t put your money into one of these programs hoping to inject keywords in the “right places” and to “properly” optimize your site! Do it the right way – by your own brainpower, research and personal know-how!

On a side note, WebPosition Gold is still maintaining a website that sells a number of products – and for many hundreds of dollars too, I might add. Don’t use programs like this. Again … PLEASE save your hard earned $$ and perform SEO yourself … or hire me. My professional SEO and web development services are very reasonable, I provide top-notch service and I’m a nice person to deal with, too!

Anyway, here is a darn good guide that Google put together outlining some best practices that webmasters can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing. Google SEO Starter Guide. Save yourself a copy. There’s good information in here and even an SEO beginner will be able to understand it and will certainly get educated from it.

Does It Cost Money To Have A Domain & Website?

Stay-At-Home Mom Says “I Need to Make Money to Help Support My Family”

I always try my best to offer SEO help to internet newbies. I fully understand how daunting it can be to get your first website up and running and I don’t mean just the technical aspects, either. Choosing a domain name, which host to sign up with and such is very confusing too, to say the least. Anyway … I received an email the other day from a young stay-at-home-mom asking for some SEO help and affiliate marketing advice. I thought this might be of help to others, so here it is, in an abbreviated version:

QUESTION:
I have never had a website or domain name. Does it cost money to have one? I was thinking about appealing to moms and family since I have some experience being a mother and homemaker. I will think of a domain name and find all of the products I want to promote. I haven’t quite pinned a theme down yet though because I haven’t seen anything that just pops out at me.

MY ANSWER:
Yes, ‘moms & families’ would be a great niche to target marketing-wise. There is lots of competition, but with research and such, you should be able to find a less competitive area within the niche of ‘moms & families’ that you could probably do very well in.

My biggest suggestion is this: don’t jump in and register a domain name without doing keyword research into the niche that interests you. Because of the online success I have personally experienced and because professionally I am an SEO consultant, I will tell you that you HAVE to know what you want to target, meaning what niche you want to market to, before you jump in and buy a domain name.

Do you know what “niche” means? Do you understand that you have to find a smaller area of the great big theme of ‘moms & families’ to try to sell to? Have you entered all sorts of different keyword ideas into Google to see what kind of other websites are out there, what they offer and such? These sites might very well be your competition.

Let me steer you to some FREE tools you can use to investigate further. To research what keywords people are using, here is a free version of the professional tool many SEO’s and website owners use: Wordtracker Free Trial. You can also use Google’s free keyword tool.

In addition, to get a really good idea of why keyword research is so important … from the choice of your new domain name on to how you will structure your website’s theme, here is another FREE tutorial from Wordtracker that will really help you: Keyword Research Guide. Please make a point to read this. You’ll learn from it. I think this is enough for you now.

Then, I personally use and recommend either GoDaddy or Namecheap for checking domain name availability and for purchasing the domain names I decide to make mine; and I have been using hosting services for years from IX Web Hosting.  They have great prices, great customer service and wonderful reliability.

Remember, read the Keyword Research Guide and use the free keyword tool BEFORE you jump in and buy up a domain name and get hosting, etc.

Have more questions?? Contact me for a free consultation.

You CAN do this, but let’s make sure you do it RIGHT!!! You’ll never regret taking your time in the beginning.