10 SEO Tips you can learn from Google’s SEO Report Card

Do you know where to start with your SEO report card for your website? Is it description meta tags? Heading tags? Well, interestingly enough Google was asking the same questions and did their own report card.

From the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Google’s SEO Report Card is an effort to provide Google’s product teams with ideas on how they can improve their products’ pages using simple and accepted optimizations. These optimizations are intended to not only help search engines understand the content of our pages better, but also to improve our users’ experience when visiting our sites.”

It’s ironic how many bad grades Google received. But we aren’t here to focus on Google’s SEO issues; we are going to pull some of their data and help you find your own issues by using Google’s list of some important SEO ranking factors.

1. How are your title tags? Yes they are important because they are how you present yourself on the search result page. Get the most valuable keywords in your title tags and as close as possible to the beginning of the title tag. Example:

2. Description meta tag use is important, too. Sure, it doesn’t help you rank better but it does effect the amount of traffic that may come to your site. In their Report Card Google says: “A search result may be a user’s first acquaintance with your product. An interesting, catchy, and relevant description meta tag can lead to a high quality snippet that entices users to click and find out more.”

3. Having content accessible through one URL (a preferred/canonical URL) helps it rank better and is easier on search users trying to reach your product.

This is huge. If you have numerous urls for one page, then you have a problem. You are literally cannibalizing your own search rankings.

Here is what Google says in the Report Card: “Consolidate URLs – Although the highlighted results above all go to the main page of the service, users should never have to ask, “Which one do I click and how are these different?” Choosing one version of a URL and consolidating the others with 301 redirects or the canonical element makes everything easier for the search engine and for users. Prevent dilution of reputation – If the same content is accessible”

4. Use 301 redirects. Except no other! Define the most common URLs visitors use and 301 redirect the to the preferred/ canonical URL or use the rel=”canonical” link element if you cannot redirect. Google tells you how to use the rel=”canonical” attribute.

5. Search engines see URLs differently even though you may think they are the same.
www.url.com/product
www.url.com/product/
url.com/product
url.com/product/
Are seen as four different pages. Fix it with a 301 to the preferred url and rel=”canonical” if you cannot.
So what is the preferred URL? A filename would be: www.url.com/product
But a directory would be: www.url.com/product/
www. is always preferred. And a trailing / should be used for directories.

6. Do not have a subdomain and directory work the same
product.url.com should not be the same as www.url.com/product/
One should 301 to the other. Also, you should realize that product.url.com takes away the potency of your overall www.url.com. Think wisely before using subdomains.

7. H1 are very important. But don’t overuse them. Use them for a descriptor of the most important information on the page. Then use your other headings, ie. H2, etc.

8. Descriptive internal anchor text is a huge oversight for most sites. Most sites will write something like: “Read More” but that means nothing. Google Report Card states: “Writing anchor text that accurately describes the content found at the destination of a link gives search engines and users more clues on what the page is about.”

9. Content is king. Always. Get it under your headings and make sure it is rich with detail and keywords.

10. What does your logo do? Does it just look pretty? It should be doing a lot, but the bad news is it could be hurting you. Google’s Report Card states: “Logo images on our products’ pages play an important role in both users and search engines’ navigation of our sites (most logos link to the main page). Making sure these link to the main page’s canonical URL can improve the flow of internal reputation and prevent 404s for users.”

Also, use alt text for your logo. Google might see an image, but its important to tell them its important and what it is. The alt text should say “Your Product” as the alt text.

Hope this helps everyone in their pursuit for better SEO.