Webmaster Help from Google

Webmaster Help from Google

Did you know that you can get webmaster help directly from ‘The Man’ (that is Google).  There was a time when Google was very obscure about its criteria for ranking a webpage; the Google employees and the contractors who were involved in this activity were required to sign nondisclosure agreements and the ‘secrets’ were supposed to be kept hidden.

This was a counterproductive policy because it left webmasters and content creators in the dark about how to meet the needs of consumers and to rank highly in Google’s search engine results. Over the years, this policy was eased and then changed totally. Today you can read all about it from “The Boss” himself or herself at Google Webmaster Guidelines.

In the spirit of complying, here is Axiom’s original, not scraped or copied, philosophy about getting to the top of search rankings, generating web traffic and producing results in the form of new customers or clients:

• Google’s intention is to provide the best answer to the query a user enters. The highest ranked webpage should be the one that is most useful to the viewer, providing the best answer to a specific question.
• To be useful, a website must provide content that is of some value to the user. Content that is ‘syndicated,’ that is scraped or copied from another site, does not meet this requirement. Even if the copied material is relevant to the question at hand, it does not add value because it was already available elsewhere.
• There is nothing wrong with a site that is intended to influence buying decisions (that is to sell you stuff); HOWEVER to rank high in search results, the website must provide useful content to the viewer, not merely direct them to a local provider or an Amazon affiliate.

The bottom line is this – produce content that is original and useful to the viewer and adds some value to the experience. If you are a plumber, your website should provide information about the relative merits of fixtures, pipes or maintenance procedures, not just pretty pictures of showers or links to Amazon sites. An attorney’s site should contain information that helps potential clients make important decisions, not just photos of well-dressed people holding law books.

If you are capable of producing this material yourself, then by all means do so. If you have neither the time or the inclination to do this, turn the task over to an internet marketing agency like Axiom Administrative Services. Axiom has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves. Please visit Axiom’s small business services or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.