Google just released a 22-page “SEO Starter Guide”. If you’ve noticed, over the past several months Google has increased its communication with the public about what they do and don’t prefer. This guide is great for those that are either new to SEO or need a quick refresher. It’s also useful to advertisers who may be working with an existing SEO firm and they want to validate the techniques being implemented.
The glaring problem with this report is that there is no discussion of link building or off-page optimization! As we all know, link building is one the most significant factors to Google rankings and has been for the past several years. Their stance on what’s counted, what’s ignored, and/or what’s penalized in the world of link building is certainly up for interpretation. Sure, they make general blanket statements of stay away from “bad neighborhoods”, don’t do “link exchanges”, don’t buy/sell links, etc, etc. These types of stances are generic and wide open for interpretation. This could be the very reason that Google is not covering link building best practices in such a report, but time will tell; hopefully Part 2 will be released in the very near future……but don’t count on it. Even it is, expect it to be high-level and generic. Link building is the “secret sauce” behind Google’s algos and ranking systems and they’re trying to regulate the “currency” they invented. Sure, they’re slowing incorporating personalization, site stickiness and other Web 2.0 metrics into their algos, but linking is still the heavyweight.
Here’s the “Cliff’s Notes” version of this 22-page report that is almost entirely focused on on-page best practices:
- Create unique & accurate title tags
- Utilized the description tag
- Improve URL structures (here’s a flip-flop from Google)
- Make site navigation easier
- Develop quality, unique content
- Write better anchor text
- Properly use heading tags (H1s, H2s, etc)
- Optimize your images
- Effectively use robots.txt
- Be mindful of rel=”nofollow” links
- Make use of Webmaster Tools & Analytics packages
While this is a fairly basic list, it is worth the read as any official report or document from Google as it relates to “best practices” is always a strong checks & balance. Take things with a grain of salt as Google will NOT give away the secret sauce and provide a “Tell All” report. As a business owner and web marketer, you do have to make your website, its content, offerings, and off-page relationships unique and stand apart from the crowd from a competitive advantage. Guides & best practices are useful, but innovate & take your strategies to another level to have an edge!
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