Google’s Services

You’ll want to check out Google Services such as:

• YouTube – Use for video sharing
• Picasa - Use for organizing and editing digital photos
• SketchUp – Use to create, modify and share 3D models.
• Calendar – Use for events listings. Calendar can be commented on by its users and the calendar can be viewed from many locations.
• Maps and Earth – Use for directions to your business and annotated tours.
• Blogger - Use for the latest announcements relating to your website, business or industry.

And with all the fabulous content on our site, understanding your visitors’ interaction with that content is key. There are two free tools that Google offers that can help you see how your site is currently performing with your visitors and how a few variations might enhance it’s over all performance.

Google Analytics

Google analytics provides helpful information on where your visitors come from, how they interact with your site and how often they are performing actions you want such as purchasing one of your products or subscribing to your news letter.

Google Website Optimizer

And while Google Analytics lets you have a look on how your site has performed, Website Optimizer helps you to test out different variations and combinations of content on your site so that you can see which version will be best for your visitors.

Google Trends

It makes sense to spend a fair amount of time improving your website, but it’s also essential to pay close attention to your market space and what your competitors are up to. Google can definitely help you with the job. You can use Google Trends to compare the prevalence of news articles and searches for different keywords and for discerning which product garners more attention or which issue excites more of your visitors.

Google Reader

Google Reader allows you to stay current on the latest articles that interest you without having to jump around from site to site by following specific topics or keywords from popular newspapers, blog posts or even your favorite video websites.

Google Alert

Google Alert provides yet another way to track what is important to you as well as keep you ahead of the marketing game. Within minutes of being published, you can receive links from informative blog entries, news articles or other web pages that mention your name, your company’s or any other phrase that you choose.

Accessability for Googlebot

It’s important to make your site accessible so that it’s a good experience for your users as well as to help Google understand your pages and list more of them. Therefore, it’s key that you understand what Googlebot can and can’t do.

HTML and other document types that consist primarily of text are fairly straight forward for Googlebot. However, music, images and video are a bit harder for it to understand. Dynamic pages are also more of a challenge for Googlebot, which are pages with frequently changing content. You can see your site pretty much the way Google sees it by viewing it in a text browser like Links or in another browser with JavaScript, images and Flash turned off.

Helping Googlebot Understand Your Site’s Pages

There are a few things you can do to assist Google in understanding the images on your site. You can do this by annotating your images in Alt Text and in plain visible text near your image. Your visible comment before or after the image can be what ever you choose, but it’s best to stay with with the straight forward version for the Alt Text. You can also use descriptive file names to help google understand as well as for users who want to download your images.

By describing your images in these ways, you are giving Google a better understanding of your images as well as improving your chances for them showing up for relevant queries and for Google Image Search. Along with images, many web experts like to incorporate rich media or interactive aspects into their website using technologies like Ajax or Flash. And though they can provide a pleasant experience for users, Googlebot may have trouble finding or following links on these types of sites.

For example, textual content for Flash can be stored as images, which makes it difficult for Google to get the words let alone understand the meaning of the pages. With careful planning however, websites that incorporate media rich elements and dynamic content can still remain accessible to both users and googlebot. You may want to consider in the structure of your site, that these elements be extras and have your website’s core information and navigation in plain text for googlebot as well as for users without Flash.

Letting People Know What Your Site’s About

After you have ensured that your site is both findable and accessible, make sure you are not providing weak content with dull and uninspired introductions. You’ll want to think of the titles and descriptions on your pages as an opportunity for advertising what your site is all about. You have just a few words to clue people in on what each page is about as well as convince them that it’s worth their time to visit.

The title tag of your pages is what’s likely to be displayed when Google displays the page in it’s search results. It will also be what people typically see on their web browser as well as on the various social networking sights. For this reason, it’s key to have a descriptive and to-the-point title for each page.

Google may pull from several different sources for snip-it descriptions in search listings, including meta descriptions. You will want to make sure that your meta descriptions are carefully thought out and drafted for each page of your site.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is when you find copies of your pages either indexed from your site and either with or without your permission on other sites For example, Your editorial ends up indexed on one of your site’s topic pages, on a syndicated partner’s page or on your monthly archives page. In a situation such as this, there are specific steps you can take to help Google determine which is the best copy to display in the search results.

With duplicate content on your own site, the best plan of action is simply to minimize the duplication from the gate. You can use use 301 redirects to forward visitors to the preferred page, consistently link to the preferred version and list it in place of other versions in your XML sitemap. And last but not least, if you find someone plagiarizing your site and you want it removed from Google search results, you can file a DMCA take down request.