How Google is Like A Third Grader

You can dedicate yourself to learning the complexities of search optimization – though, you may discover that it can easily become a full-time job.

For those of you that already have a full-time job, or a business to run, a better option is to learn the basics and apply some logic to achieving practical results. This is much easier than one may realize.

Despite the complexities associated with how Google serves up relevant search results, the reality is you can readily communicate messages that elevate your content by being clear, concise, and direct – just as if you would with a third grader.

Focus on the User Experience for Your Audience

Update Your Articles

The majority of consumers are open to change, so they welcome anything that is new and better. Since Google serves a worldwide web of consumers, they too are very receptive to change.

Google is a search engine that may not necessarily know what content is better, so they have to pay close attention to signals that make that suggestion – this includes social sharing and recent updates.

This is why it is a good practice to go back to your old articles and freshen them up if you want your site to be relevant.

Make no mistake – updating earlier content is work, but it pays dividends.

If you publish content online (or anywhere else) you know it can sometimes be challenging to come up with good things to write about. So, here’s an idea.

Your earlier work still has merit. Redesign them to make them new, and thus, better in the eyes of Google.

Manage Your Earned Links

Links are a digital form of communication that can also be freshened. Just apply the concept of communicating to a third grader.

As children, we have all been conditioned to link results with specific behaviors, such as cleaning up your room so you can then go out and play.

If you clean up your room – that is, if you kill the links that are leading to tired content and create new ones that lead to fresh content, Google will indeed play with you – favoring your content in search

A clean room is fresh content, but Google cannot possibly notice it unless you link to it.

Updating your content is one signal, but a more powerful one is linking to that content to ensure that Google does not miss it.

When you do this, Google and the other search engines can’t help but notice you and your business.

And guess what?  Your audience will not either – especially if you promote that content on the social networks to encourage social sharing. That’s the icing on the cake – more links that suggest your content is relevant.

Carefully Choose Titles and Tags

Titles are SEO gold – the most important aspect of any article.

Titles are what gets your content read in the first place. This is why Google gives a great deal of weight to titles.

Why?  Because Google wants what your audience wants.

So, make sure your title tag is clear and to the point – matching closely to your title.

If you don’t know, title tags are the few words (with the emphasis on few) that identify the content within your blog post or article – via the permalink for the post.

For example, the tags in this article are: Google-Search-Fresh. Just check out the URL of this post.

You should eliminate words that add no value – such as the word – the. While these words may be necessary for human beings to engage with your title, they really don’t add anything for search engines looking for informational content.

Once again, you have to communicate with Google as if they are a third grader. This means using the key words that your audience is using to search for a company like yours.

For me, these words include – small business, speaker, social media, marketing, QR codes, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.

Your challenge is determining which words are best for your business – and using them well, by linking to fresh content.

Leave a comment below or share this with your community with any of the share buttons below – or with those on the little red bar at the bottom of this page.

Until next time, Jeff

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.