Why would you want a search engine to love you? After all, if you want affection, you could always get a dog.
But if you are creating a website, you want Google to love you because it is the most-used search engine in the world. It’s so powerful, it has become a verb – if people want to know something, they google it.
So, how do you get Google to love you?
Well, it’s slightly simpler than getting that girl/boy to like you (dark arts), but a bit more difficult than getting your dog to like you (biscuits).
Google is complicated; no one is allowed to know exactly what algorithms are used to decide the ranking of search results, and these algorithms change frequently. But, despite these “mysteries”, there are some things that Google definitely finds attractive.
Be mobile friendly
Really, if at this stage of the game your site isn’t responsive (i.e. it adjusts itself to suit the device it is being viewed on), you seriously need to catch up. More and more people are using their phones and tablets to access websites, and are getting used to having information at their fingertips all the time. It is frustrating for a user to visit a site that doesn’t work on their device, and they are likely to just go somewhere else. Google knows this, and doesn’t want to put people through the ordeal of having to scroll sideways and zoom in and out, so it will push sites that are mobile friendly up the list of search results, and ones that aren’t, down.
Don’t try too hard
Much like when courting humans, it is best to be yourself when courting Google. Google can tell when you’re trying to trick it into liking your site. No matter how much you might have fallen in love with it, Google is not a person; its goal in life is to find sites that humans will like. Try to create something that will impress your audience, not something that you think will impress Google.
Consider your keywords carefully
Although you shouldn’t try too hard (see above), this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try at all. Keywords are like hair gel – too much and your date will think you’re creepy, too little and they will think you don’t care enough. Don’t litter your copy with keywords; rather use them cleverly. For example, words inside title and heading tags (bits of code that tell a browser how to format something) count as more important than keywords in paragraphs.
Content is king
OK, maybe not quite king, as all parts that make up a site are important. Perhaps content is more like a princess or something. But Google does have its mysterious ways of telling if your content is good. It gives us tips on how to create quality content, but the idea behind it is quite simple, and is something you should be doing anyway – make your content something real people want to read. It should be informative, easy to navigate, and free from spelling and grammar errors, repeated content, and broken links.
Coding is also king
Okay, fine, a princess too. Visitors to your site might not be able to see it plainly, but poor coding affects everything about your website, and Google can see the code. Page loading time, for instance, matters to visitors, and therefore matters to Google. Google doesn’t even have to go to your page and load it; it just looks at the file size and code, and it can guess.
Code and content work together to help Google read your site. As mentioned above, the importance of copy can be influenced by the tag around it, and leaving tags empty, like alt tags (words that describe a picture), or using bold when you could use a heading style (different tags format text as bold or headings) is a waste. And never forget about the meta tag (the tag in which you put a brief description of the page).
Listen to Google
Listening is key to any good relationship. Although the inner workings of Google’s algorithms are quite mysterious, Google does offer you a lot of help. If you really care about Google (and you should, you’re in love, aren’t you?), have a look at its search console help pages, or even do the course. Google wants to help; it really does love you.