Sitemap SEO

The Sitemap is a page listing all of the pages, posts, content and meta data on your website. It keeps track of when your content was last modified and identifies the most important parts of the website.

A sitemap allows Google to easily and accurately Index or rank your website. This is how the search engines determine what your website is all about and how relevant it is for a particular search term. Play Google’s Game and include a sitemap page on your website!

Learn More: For an example of a great plugin for WordPress that automates your sitemap page, please see: 

http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

https://yoast.com/ 

HTML SEO

The programming code follows an overall basic structure and hierarchy, much the same as a letter you would write. It starts at the top and reads left to right. At the top there is a brief section called the Head, and then the Body is next. The head contains our very important Meta Tags and other overall instructions affecting the look and feel of the website. We’ll discuss meta tags shortly. The body contains all the text, images, and layout of the website.

It’s important to know that the Google spiders read the code much like we read a letter. They start at the top; therefore, they value what’s at the top more than what’s at the bottom.

See an example of HTML code below:

Google’s SEO Blog

Google has a Blog on SEO where you can participate to get updates and answers to your questions right from Google itself.

On the Google SEO blog you will be able to  find answers to many common SEO questions.. You can search the forum for topics and previously asked questions, or post your own. (It’s best to search for your answer before you post.)

The forum is made up of other webmasters, forum expert contributors (we know you’ll be one one day). Google employees will even offer to help on occasion.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/webmasters

Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land is a a great resource for news on search engine marketing and search engine optimization.

Most industry expeerts consider this  industry publication the most authoritative source on search that covers news and information about search engines, and search marketing, SEO and SEM topics.

http://searchengineland.com/  

Official Google SEO Starter Guide

Official Google SEO Guide:
www.PlayGooglesGame.com/official-google-seo-guide

Google’s Quality Guidelines

Google uses human raters to rate our websites.  Here are the guidelines they go by.

Here is the link to Google’s Quality Guidelines 

Google Search Console Dashboard

Google re-branded Webmaster Tools into Search Console in 2015. Their intent was loud and clear. They took a platform from super geeky down to the layperson’s level overnight. They made it intuitive, easy to navigate, and fully searchable. They are now offering clear answers to SEO questions, which were vague (to say the least) prior to the Search Console.

Click Here for the link to the Google Search Console Dashboard.

This is Google’s main SEO tool and learning center. They re-branded it by purposely de-emphasizing the geeky word “Webmaster” so that they could attract the business owner to use it.

In fact, their home screen says it all: “We want to help you have a Google friendly site.”

How To: There are actually two tools offered here: 

1. Google Search Console – Help
2. Google Search Console  -Dashboard.

For Accessing your Google Search Console Dashboard, you must be logged into your Google account. The help Area does not require an account