Domain Name

Your domain name serves multiple purposes, from traffic generation to branding. More important than those factors, however, is that there is both SEO relevancy and SEO value in the domain name that you choose for your website. It's crucial that you select a domain name that you're extremely happy with and that accurately reflects your business because your domain can be an equitable digital asset that will pay you dividends in the form of high-ranking performance on Google for relevant searches.

You might be surprised to know that when you build, design, and optimize a website, all of the hard work that you put into the content, graphics, structure, and traffic generation of the site gets credited back to your domain. It's similar to a newly built or renovated house. When you add value to the interior or exterior of the house in the form of new finishes, woodwork, flooring, or paint, all of that extra value gets retained by the house as a whole, not any one particular element. Any value that is contributed from within the website is awarded back to your domain itself.

Building equity in your domain is not an overnight process. It is something that happens as you build your website upon a solid foundation and consistently maintain it with new (fresh) information that is relevant to your target audience.

Here are some best practices when working with URLs that work extremely well and will position your web presence for success:

• Create site URL guidelines: Be aware of the URL format that your website uses and stick with it throughout your entire website. This will make it easy for users (and maybe even future developers) to have a clear understanding of how your website is structured.
• Keep it simple: As I mentioned earlier, your domain serves multiple purposes, two of which have to do with branding and traffic generation. Therefore it's important to try to keep your domain as brief as possible. For your own sanity, consider having to write out your domain on the back of someone else's business card, or read it over the phone. Wouldn't you yourself want to make it as simple as possible to share with others?
• Be descriptive, not technical: This goes hand in hand with keeping it simple. Isn't it frustrating when a URL has “?,” “&,” or hundreds of numbers? If you are able to choose, pick a URL that is simple and memorable. For example, choose “www.yourdomain.com/fashion/women/” instead of “www.yourdomain.com/115/fashion&women=79829374?223/.” Moreover, if your URL contains multiple words in the form of a phrase, consider separating each word with a hyphen—for example, www.yourdomain.com/affordable-art-supplies-in-manhattan.
• Remember, URLs are CaSe SeNsItIvE: Never, ever in a million years allow your URLs to have uppercase characters. Not only is it confusing for your visitors but also it just makes for poor URL structure practice. If your website currently has uppercase characters in your URLs, consider creating 301 redirects to lowercase versions of the same page.
• Beware of subdomains: Subdomains are somewhat of an appendage to the main domain. I see them regularly when companies include a blog on their website (e.g., blog.yourdomain.com). Since we're talking about building domain equity, it's important to note that subdomains may not be treated as equally as primary domains when it comes to rewarding link value or credibility from a search engine perspective.
• Geo-targeted domains can be helpful for branding: Where most small to medium-sized business are concerned, including geo-targeting in your domain can be helpful for your visitors to help them identify your location and area of service.
  • For example: www.MarltonKarate.com, www.LandscapingCherryHillNJ.com, www.PhiladelphiaDentists.com or www.UsedCarDallas.co

The scope and objective of your online business will ultimately determine how you proceed with a domain name. For example, if you serve a local market area and your primary goal is to dominate local-related searches and obtain Google page one dominance, then you must have a domain that is geo-targeted to the city or market area that you service. Doing so will give you an extra edge over sites that are not geo-targeted and will make it easier for potential customers to recognize that you are in the same area as them.

Suppose that someone was searching for a karate school in Marlton, New Jersey, and they typed into Google “karate schools in Marlton, New Jersey.” What do you think would show up if you owned www.MarltonKarate.com or www.KarateMarltonNJ.com and those sites were properly optimized? Think about how you would rank versus a karate school named “Cobra-Kai Martial Arts” with a domain of www.CobraKaiMA.com (located in Marlton, New Jersey). Yes, with a geo-targeted domain you would have an advantage to achieve premium placement on Google, again for locally relevant searchers and their search queries.

This is not to say that merely purchasing a geo-targeted domain will guarantee you premium Google placement. Such is not the case. There are many more factors to consider when optimizing your website besides a geo-targeted domain. However, I am suggesting that if you have two different websites that were optimized well and one of them happens to have a specific and relevant geo-targeted domain, it will enhance that website's ability to show up higher and receive premium Google placement over the other site that uses a generic domain.

On the other hand, if your business does not serve a specific market area or city and the scope of your business is broader and more far-reaching, utilizing a geo-targeted domain may not have much more influence over your ability to receive premium Google placement. Whatever domain you choose to go with, be sure to select a domain that is relevant to both your business and your brand. It should always be something that will last with your business and be easily remembered and recognized by your intended target audience.

So what's the best strategy for selecting a domain name that will, as mentioned, fit your business objectives and resonate with your intended target audience? Here are some tips and software tools that can assist you in getting the most out of your domain name and dominating Google for relevant searches.

Title Tags

Title elements, also known as “title tags,” are one of the most important aspects of onsite SEO by far. They define the title of a document or web page. Title tags are used on SERPs (search engine result pages) to give a synopsis or a preview of a website or web page. In other words, the title tag is meant to give a useful and specific description of the content on a web page. This is imperative to both the onsite SEO and the user's experience. It creates value in three main areas:

1. SERPs
2. Relevancy
3. Browsing

Google usually displays 55 characters of a title tag. So, if you keep your title tag characters at 55 or less you can expect 95 percent of the time to have your full title tag displayed (correctly) on a Google search results page.

Using keywords in your title tag will give you a competitive edge. As a matter of fact, if someone searches for a specific keyword that happens to be in your title, Google will highlight that keyword in the title tag in the search result. This means that you will get a higher click-through rate and of course better visibility.

There are two main components of title tags:

1. Search engine optimization: You want to use relevant and righteous keywords in the title tag so the title tag/web page becomes prominent on page one of Google. Title tags are the most visible and prominent on Google's search results page.
2. Click-throughs: You want to make sure that you write the title tag so it is compelling or interesting enough to make someone want to click through.

Always remember that it isn't all about getting ranking—it's also about getting click-throughs. There is a cause and effect relationship here. You need to be visible for the opportunity to do business. So, once you have visibility you need to convert that visibility to a click. Once that click is accomplished and that person winds up on your website, the strategy now changes to generating a lead, or a sale. This means that once a prospect is on your website, you want them to pick up the phone and call you, or you want them to contact you via email or a contact form on your website. That way, once you have engaged the prospect in live communication, you have an opportunity to present your value package proposition (your message about why to buy from you) and sell them on yourself or your product or service. The other possibility from a click-through is that you have an ecommerce website or a shopping cart on your website that would bypass the need for an email or a phone call and they can go directly to buying your product or service from that click-through on the search results page on Google.

These best practices for title tag creation will yield you low effort and high SEO value:

• Consider readability and emotional impact. You want to create a title tag that will emotionally engage and captivate the searcher. This will ensure more visits from Google's search results. The title tag is the first interaction with the searcher/prospect. You know what they say: “You only have one shot to make a first impression.” So, you should use that first impression wisely. Make sure that you articulate a compelling reason for them to click through.
• Be cognizant of your title tag length. Remember that Google will truncate (shorten) your title tag if you exceed 50–60 characters. That might not be conducive to your overall strategy. With that being said, you shouldn't obsess over title tag length. Title tag content and the ability to entice a prospect to click are more important.
• Make sure you place the keyword(s) close to the start of the title tag. This secret tip will prove powerful for ranking, and the prospect will be more likely to click it on Google's search results page.
• Remember your brand is important! The strength of your brand will dictate where you place the brand's name in the title tag. If you have a dominant or popular brand, then the strategy is to put the name of the brand in the beginning of the title tag. This is because it might make the difference in a person clicking the link. However, if you have a fledgling brand, product, service, or company, then it would make more sense to put the relevant keyword in the beginning of the title tag and the brand name at the end of the title tag, because the keyword will have more of an impact on the prospect clicking through versus an unknown or new brand.
• “Exact match” title tags are bad unless it's the name of the website. Google started to penalize for this because it said it was overoptimization.
• Use natural language. Make sure that your keywords are in the title tags, but make sure that they are part of natural language. You don't want to just drop random keywords that have SEO value but don't have logic or conversational value.¹

Here are some examples:

• A martial arts school in Marlton, New Jersey, named Full Circle Martial Arts with this domain: www.FullCircleMartialArts.net

  The proper title tag would be:

  • Full Circle Martial Arts—Martial Arts School in Marlton, NJ
  • Under 55 characters, so it will be displayed properly on a Google search result
  • Semantic indexing
  • Geo-target for local business is extremely important
  • Relevant keywords in title tag

• A car salesman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that specializes in bad credit car loans with this domain: www.AutoCreditApproved.com

  The proper title tag would be:

  • Get Your Auto Credit Approved in Philadelphia PA—Call 215-555-1212
  • Under 55 characters, so it will be displayed properly on a Google result page
  • Semantic indexing
  • Geotarget for local business is extremely important
  • Relevant keywords in title tag
  • Solid call to action
  • Proper use of a phone number in a title tag!

A lot of people use Google like a phone book. They search for something, and if they find a phone number in the title tag, they can click to call right from the search results page. This will reduce abandonment. You will be able to provide prospects with the information they need faster and reduce redundant clicks!

• An Italian restaurant named Tour of Italy, located in Brooklyn, New York, with a domain of www.TourOfItalyBK.com

  The proper title tag would be:

  • Best Italian Food in Brooklyn—Tour of Italy Restaurant—Reserve Now
  • Under 60 characters, so it will be displayed properly on a Google result page
  • Semantic indexing
  • Geotarget for local business is extremely important
  • Relevant keywords in title tag
  • Solid call to action
  • Multiple relevant keywords and phrases within the title tag

Don't get lazy and not do enough. On the other hand, do not try to do too much with the title tag. Make sure to use unique title tags for each page and, most importantly, make sure that they match the content theme of the page they are on. Specifically, you do not want to stuff too many things in a title tag or “keyword stuff.” For example, regarding the Full Circle Martial Arts school in Marlton, New Jersey, Marlton is a respectable town; however, the town right next door is Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and it is an even more popular and prestigious location. As a matter of fact, it has a booming economy, one of the best malls in New Jersey, and an affluent community. Most people who search Google with a geo-targeted location will usually choose a town, city, or county that has the most possibilities. For example, Cherry Hill is a more “happening” place and has more perceived options. So, searchers might choose Cherry Hill over Marlton, even though they live in Marlton. Cherry Hill, New Jersey, is only five minutes away from Marlton. Another scenario is that someone lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and is interested in a martial arts school or karate school. Mathematically speaking, there are more possible students that live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, versus Marlton because there are more people who live in Cherry Hill. So, should Full Circle Martial Arts settle only for students that live in Marlton? Of course not! Especially when Cherry Hill is only five minutes from Marlton. So, logically the owners of Full Circle Martial Arts will want to target Cherry Hill. The problem is that you do not want to add numerous geo-targeted keywords in the title tag. Specifically, you do not want to have “Cherry Hill,” “Marlton,” and “Medford” in the same title tag for several reasons:

• As mentioned earlier, you don't want to dilute the search engine relevancy and spread your title tag too thin. Have a focus. If you have a main primary market area (PMA), then focus that geo-target on the home page's title tag. If you want to conquer other geo-targeted locations, then simply create additional pages with unique title tags that focus on those geo-targets
• Remember that Google displays only 55 characters (sometimes even less), so you don't want to have a run-on title tag that has ellipses—that is not a good look. So, you need to put first things first and make sure you do not exceed the character limit in the title tag.

Here is the example of how Full Circle Martial Arts School should properly handle the title tag situation if they want to conquer opportunities from the nearby and bigger town of Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

• Brand a totally new page (this page will have a relevant subdirectory, or an extended URL) and create a totally new title tag for that page (focus).
  • Example of the URL and subdirectory:
    • www.FullCircleMartialArts.net/Karate-School-Cherry-Hill-NJ
• Example of the title tag: Martial Arts—MMA Karate—School in Cherry Hill—NJ
  • Under 55 characters, so it will be displayed properly on a Google search result
  • Semantic indexing
  • Geo-target for local business is extremely important
  • Relevant keywords in title tag
  • This title tag's keyword strategy is to conquer prospects that are not in the business's primary market area. The objective is tactically designed to convert other martial arts schools' clients and prospects to Full Circle Martial Arts.

By now you should realize that a website does not have to have only one title tag. In fact websites need to create as many title tags (and web pages) as they need to articulate their value package proposition and highlight all of their profit centers. Here are some tips:

• Including “call to actions” on some of the title tags is a good practice.
  • The About Us page
    • Learn about How Full Circle Martial Arts Trains Karate Champions
• Phone numbers in the title tag are debatable…there is no right or wrong way to do it. There is value. I suggest that you not use phone numbers in all of your title tags. Use numbers only in pages/title tags that make sense, like the example I gave earlier in the chapter.
• If you use all caps in your title tag you won't get ranked. Google does not like it.

Heading Tags

As their name suggests, heading tags are used to identify clear separations between the heading text of a page and its associated content. They are among the more important on-page SEO elements because they are used to represent sections in website content and help Google understand how relevant the written content on the page should be in comparison to its heading.

In SEO, heading tags are powerful because search engine spiders use them to check the relevancy of the heading tag with the context of the page content associated with it. If your heading tag and the subsequent content are misaligned, you risk confusing search engines and losing search engine ranking opportunities.

There is a sequential hierarchy to heading tags, ranging from H1 all the way to H6. There are several factors to understand about heading tags so that you implement them properly on each page of your website. From H1, you must follow the sequential order of the heading tags on your site without breaking the order. You cannot create an <H1> tag and skip over the <H2> and go straight to an <H3>. Similarly, you can't begin your page with an <H2> tag without first including the <H1> tag.

H1 is without question the most important of all the tags and should exist on every page of your website because search spiders check it to get a basic description about what content should be on the page. After the <H1> tag, every proceeding check that the search engine makes is in cross-reference to the <H1> tag for relevancy.

There are lots of different opinions on the best strategy for utilizing heading tags for proper SEO ranking. I am going to focus on what Google wants. As mentioned in Chapter 2, it's all about Google. No egos, no distractions, just focus on exactly what will appease Google, and you will be successful. I have found that the best Google strategy is a pyramid-style approach.

Pyramid Strategy

In order to make sure you are creating effective header tags, you need to create a proper hierarchy. The best way to think of header tags is in a pyramid, like the food pyramid. Take a look at Figure 4.1 to see the pyramid strategy for header tags. At the tip of the pyramid is the <H1> tag. You should have only one H1 tag. An H1 tag will consist of more than one keyword; it will be a keyword phrase. An <H2> tag contains two to three key phrase tags. <H3> and <H4> tags can have even more keyword phrases, just as the base of a pyramid will be wider. The same goes for the heading pyramid strategy.

When it comes to the actual keywords or phrases inside the heading tags, you want to focus on three important variables: consistency, relevancy, and user experience. Google's search spiders evaluate the keyword consistency and the keyword relevancy between all of the heading tags and the rest of the content on the page, as well as content associated with it. Since Google places a lot of importance on overall user experience, it is important that the heading tags be properly created to give the user the best understanding of what the page content is about.

Think of creating a powerful SEO strategy like writing a thorough outline for an article, book, or idea. You want to create outline headings and then bullet-point thoughts or ideas by drilling down intelligently. Let's just pretend that I was writing a book (darn, where's my wink emoji?). It is much easier to focus your direction first by creating an outline and then going back and filling in the details. I would first start with a concept, and then I would outline the entire book's focus, section by section. I would then create chapter titles, drill down with chapter descriptions, and then further drill down with bullet points for the details. I would review my outline numerous times, making sure to include all supporting information and, if necessary, modifying it. Then finally I would structure my final book outline. This outline would work as my blueprint for my book. It would be an important guide to ensure that everything makes sense and also to make sure that I stay focused on the end goal in mind.

Here is a perfect example of the proper use of headings for the ultimate SEO strategy that will enable you to achieve page one dominance on Google.

Example

1. <H1>Los Angeles Honda Dealer - Sean Bradley Honda</H1>
2. <H2>Selling New Honda and Pre-Owned Vehicles</H2>
3. <H3>Honda Accord</h3>
4. <H3>Honda Civic</h3>
5. <H2>Serving LA County and the Surrounding Areas</H2>
6. <H3>Honda Dealership Near Glendale, CA</H3>

The example shows the hierarchy of a car dealership and how its homepage might be structured. You'll see that there is only one H1.

The number of headings should be limited to the need. In this example, there are two general needs: location and item. The location can be relatively wide in the local area; people are willing to drive to a dealership 50–100 miles away in order to get the right car. If you have a different type of local business, like a restaurant or a barber shop, proximity plays a much higher role. People aren't going to drive 50 miles to get to a particular barber shop, so you will need headings that only represent the immediate local area. Also, a barber shop offers limited services beyond cutting hair, so there's no need to put in too many headings for multiple products or services.

The items for the car dealership are individual models, so I included an <H2> that discusses new and used cars and broke it down further to include <H3> tags for individual models.

Here's an example of a heading structure for a more complex type of business.

Example

1. <H1>Dallas Lawyer - Sean Bradley, Esquire</H1>
2. <H2>Top Litigator in the Dallas Area</H2>
3. <H3>Ft Worth Attorney</H3>
4. <H4>Fort Worth Personal Injury Lawyer</H4>
5. <H4>Super Lawyer in Ft Worth<H4>
6. <H3>Plano Law Offices</H3>
7. <H2>Specializing in Multiple Legal Disciplines</H2>
8. <H3>Divorce Attorney Dallas</H3>
9. <H3>Class Action Lawyer Dallas</H3>

The easiest way to think about heading tags is to put them in the way that you would personally search. One might think that a restaurant has many different items on their menu, but people will rarely search for “Los Angeles macaroni,” for example. They would search for “LA restaurants” or “Los Angeles steak houses.” How do you search? Let that guide your headings.

One last mention about heading tags: they should not be used for styling text—use CSS for that. Don't put a heading tag around some part of the content just because you want it bold or bigger. Use <strong> or ask your designer what CSS calls you can make for styling text.²

Meta-description, also simply known as description, is the second most important focus when optimizing a web page. However, the importance is not primarily for SEO—it is for obtaining click-throughs or for the user experience.

Meta-description is defined as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) attributes that explain in specific detail the contents of web pages. Descriptions are utilized on SERPs to showcase a synopsis of a web page.

Just as for title tags, there is an optimal number of characters for the description. So it would behoove you not to exceed 155 characters if you want to appeal to the search engines.

The most important thing to remember when you are creating the meta-descriptions is to utilize keywords strategically. But you do not want to keyword stuff or randomly sprinkle keywords. Google frowns upon this this and will penalize you for it. You need to write your descriptions using compelling ad copy that will entice searchers to click through. Uniqueness and relevance for each page's meta-description are imperative.

If someone searches for something and types in a keyword or phrase like “divorce lawyer Atlanta” or “who is the best divorce lawyer in Atlanta” and one of those keywords or phrase is in the description of a website ranked on a search engine results page, Google will bold the keywords or phrase. These bolded keywords will increase click-throughs, so make sure you write your meta-descriptions accordingly.

For example, if you Google “best divorce lawyer Atlanta” (https://www.google.com/#q=best+divorce+lawyer+in+atlanta), you will see this rank organically on the top 10 list (see Figure 4.2):

1. Georgia Super Lawyers - Top Lawyers in GA (title tag)

2. www.superlawyers.com/georgia (URL)

   Find top rated Georgia lawyers, lawyer, attorney, attorneys at Super Lawyers – GA Lawyers.…Find Top Rated Lawyers in Georgia…Atlanta magazine. List(s)…(Description)

This is a perfect example of an awesome description that is engineered to appeal both to Google and to the individual searcher looking for the “best divorce lawyer in Atlanta.” But when you put together the awesome title tags with the awesome domain name and combine it with the awesome description, then boom! You have a recipe for Google success. Think about this example a little more deeply. Put yourself in the shoes of people who are very distraught: they are having severe marital problems to the point that they are seeking a divorce. They have a lot to lose here:

• Custody of the children
• Assets
  • Home
  • Cars
  • Real estate investments
  • Retirement fund
  • Jewelry
• Cash

Then compound the situation with all of the emotions, like fear, anger, frustration, and sadness. Can you try to imagine all of these things running through your head, and you are thinking, “I need a divorce lawyer ASAP, and I need the best one before I get railroaded!” Now you turn to the mighty oracle, Google, the answerer of all questions, and you type in, “best divorce lawyer in Atlanta.” Google provides you with only 21 listings (on the first page), 11 PPC ads, and the top 10 list. Remember only 6 percent of people click PPC ads. So, that leaves us the top 10 list. You look through the top 10 list and see the words Super Lawyer, Top Lawyer, Georgia, and Top Rated. You also see this numerous times in the title and the domain, and you see numerous bold keywords in the description. You must be thinking, “Wow, the Google oracle must be right again!” And then you click through. And that's how it works, folks!

Let me give you a different scenario with a different industry. Let's say you were looking for a cleaning company or housekeepers in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area.

If you Googled “reliable house cleaning Tulsa,” you will find the following in first-position, natural Google:

1. Tulsa, OK Cleaning Service | Total Care | House Cleaning… (title tag)

2. totalcaremaintenance.com/tulsa-ok-home-cleaning-service/ (URL)

   For a reliable Tulsa OK cleaning service, call 918-851-9338 today! You won't find a better house cleaning service in Tulsa! Home cleaning services Tulsa, OK. (Description)³

The description is awesome! If you were seriously in need of a cleaning service or housekeeper in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area, and you asked the mighty Google oracle where can you find a reliable cleaning service, and Google showed you this listing with that perfect description, chances are you would call the phone number right inside the description or you would click the link. Most people would take some sort of action if they were truly in the market. The description sold you on why you needed to call or click them. Plus it had your desired keywords in bold text. You asked Google for a “reliable” cleaning service, and, dammit, that is exactly what Google found for you. And Google wanted you to know that it heard you loud and clear with your specific request for a “reliable” cleaning service, so it bolded all of the keywords you specified in the description.

A couple of important things to be cognizant of:

• Be careful not to duplicate meta-descriptions on different web pages. Just as it is not good to duplicate title tags, the same goes for the description. Google is very clear that it likes unique and relevant content, descriptions, and title tags; everything must be customized and unique for each and every page.
• Double quotation marks will get your description truncated. To prevent Google from cutting off your meta-description, do not use double quotes in your meta-description. If for some reason you feel compelled to use quotation marks in your description, make sure that you use only single quotation marks.⁴

Linking

Before I get into the details of linking, back linking, inbound linking, and so on, I want to share with you the backstory of Google and why linking is so important.

In 1996 Larry Page and Sergey Brin hooked together a ton of old Stanford University computers that the university would have thrown away and built the first “citation” or link-based search engine. At the time the only way to search through Stanford's database of professors' research projects was via a contextual search that returned thousands of results ordered by the count of the keyword searched in the actual document. The problem was that hundreds of documents that won the keyword count game pushed the more relevant and authoritative papers off into obscurity.

They decided that a better way to return the docs for a searcher would be to combine the word search with a citation count on the assumption that the papers and documents that were the most cited resources were the most valuable to researchers. They were right!

They offered this new link-based technology to Yahoo! and Microsoft at the time and were laughed out of the buildings, so they raised venture capital and did it themselves, creating Google and hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth in the process.

Google was built on link-based technology. It makes sense to understand linking and how to do it properly to maximize your website's opportunity to achieve Google page one dominance.

The old adage goes, “Show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are.” That quote says it all. That is how Google feels, too! Part of Google's algorithm is that if you are linked by a known site that is relevant and gets a lot of traffic, then you will get “link juice” and be rewarded by its credibility. It makes perfect sense. Google is trying to ensure that searchers find the most relevant source, and if a recognized authority links back to you, then you are considered credible. This type of link is called an external link.

Internal Links

The level of credibility a site possesses is the key to getting a website ranked on Google. How does your site gain credibility with Google? External links are crucial, especially from sites that are well established themselves. However, links from within a website are crucial for Google to evaluate the relevancy of the site and ultimately decide how to rank the site.

There are numerous ways for a website to utilize internal links:

• Website navigation
• Links in the content, anchor text
• Links on the pages
• Site map

Here are some best practices for linking that will help you achieve your Google page one dominance:

• Don't put too many links in the body of your text content. No more than five or six links.
• Keep your total links (including navigation) on any page under 100 and you will be in great shape. Remember that fewer links means more link juice!
• Have a link strategy:
  • Links that are in the body of your content will have a higher relevancy to Google's algorithm.

  • Make sure that you link from one section in your website to another section that is relevant.

    For example, your website is www.autocreditapproved.com (a bad credit/no credit website for people who need a car loan), and you are writing copy for the home page, talking about how your company can help anyone get approved—all they have to do is Apply Now. You can make “Apply Now” a hyperlink that goes directly to your credit application.

  • It is a great practice to add a link to new content or old content as an update to an article or blog post.

There are so many ways to build and entice other websites to link to your company it is absurd. In fact, there are so many ways that you really must decide which ones are worth your time and investment. Not all of these are recommended, but here is a very long list of ways to get links that can move you into the top spots for your most important commercial search terms.

Keep in mind that if it's easy and seems too good to be true, it is. Appropriate link building takes effort, and in general the more effort it takes, the higher the quality of the link and the harder it will be for your competitors to replicate what you are doing.

Here is the list:www.linkbuildingbook.com/link-building-resources.html

There are more things you can do to build links than you'd ever want to attempt. If you are a local business, you should focus on local links like charities, local online journals, local newspaper sites, local radio station sites, local politics, chamber of commerce sites, and so forth.

If you are a national or international business, you'll need to focus on the more authoritative sites in your industry. Think about associations, existing vendors, partners, bureaus, government affiliations, university affiliations, large charities and national newspapers and media authorities. Be prepared to spend a significant amount of money to compete for valuable commercial search terms—you are not the only fish in the sea. However, if you are competing on a local level, creating the proper strategy can be very inexpensive or free. You just have to put in the time and patience to cultivate your strategy.

Get an idea of what it's going to take before you enter, make your strategy first, and then evaluate your budget. You are not going to win the number one spot for “pay day loans” by spending $2,000 a month, no matter what you do. Use keyword planning tools and consult with an expert if you are unsure about what it will cost to become visible for valuable search terms. Otherwise, you may find yourself on an uphill battle that will only lead to frustration.

Plan ahead and plan to win. The number one spot gets 70 percent of the traffic and page 2+ gets nothing. Organize your content correctly and then link, link, link. With the right strategy and assets you can win for anything. Avoid easy automated link-building “solutions” as they are typically ineffective or provide only a temporary boost and are always dangerous. Nothing will ruin your day like a Google slap, and sometimes the only way to get away from the penalty is to change your domain! Just like everything else in life, hard work pays off and shortcuts can ruin everything. Choose wisely and do it right the first time to avoid the hassle of cleaning up a huge mess. You can tell when it's too good to be true and in link building the easy route hurts, so do the work, make it happen, and have fun.

Figure 4.3 shows an example page of correctly optimized commercial content.

The content is worthy of study because despite the fact that the dealership is very small and located in tiny Alachua, Florida, more than 20 miles outside of Gainesville, Florida, this page outranks the big boat dealers that are physically located in Gainesville. A quick link analysis shows us that no inbound links have been built to point at this page at all, yet this page ranks number one in Google for commercial terms such as “outboard boat motors Gainesville FL,” “Yamaha outboard motors Gainesville FL,” and “Mercury outboard motors Gainesville FL.”

So let's take a closer look.

The heading tag incorporates the important keywords and clearly describes the content.

Yamaha and Mercury Marine Outboard Boat Motors in Gainesville FL

The paragraph content is in proper English, reads well, and includes utility for the user.

Santa Fe Powersports is proud to be an authorized dealer of both Yamaha Marine Outboards and Mercury Marine Outboard motors. You know we always treat you with the respect you deserve and our pricing and financing is unmatched. Ask our professional and knowledgeable staff anything at all about a new Mercury or Yamaha outboard motor for your boat.

To find the owner's manual for your existing Yamaha outboard or to peruse the features of the new models, click here for the real Yamaha manuals straight from the source.

And for all the Yamaha aficionados out there, click here for all the technical specs you could ever want on nearly every model ever made. Search by model or serial number.

When it comes to your boat, you can trust Santa Fe Powersports to steer you in the right direction. Our certified professionals are ready to service your outboard motors and answer your questions. Our goal is to make your boating dreams a reality. We offer full financing to qualified buyers and can work with you even if you've got less than perfect payment history. Count on Santa Fe Powersports for all of your boating needs, you'll be glad you did.

Notice that keywords are incorporated but not overused, and everything on the page is true and verifiable. The webmaster has included valuable links off the page to authorities on the topic of outboard motors.

To find the owner's manual for your existing Yamaha outboard or to peruse the features of the new models click here for the real Yamaha manuals straight from the source.

The link in this paragraph links to www.yamahaoutboards.com/owner-resources/owners-manuals.

And for all the Yamaha aficionados out there, click here for all the technical specs you could ever want on nearly every model ever made. Search by model or serial number.

The link in this paragraph links to www.yamahapubs.com/index.do?pg=search&category=4, which is a complete database of tech specs for each and every model of outboard motor Yamaha has ever made.

These types of resources can be found with simple Google searches, and including these links to authoritative and topically relevant resources gives your page added value that Google consistently rewards with preferential treatment in search engine results (see Figure 4.4).

There are a couple of other examples of best practices on this page. When you are viewing the page, roll over the images to reveal the image alt tags. Alt tags are meant for visually impaired and blind web users. Thanks to the advent of alt tags, blind people can still absorb graphical content on the web via their software or braille-enabled devices describing the images to them. This is a great place to include keywords but should not be spammed or stuffed. When writing your alternative tags for your images, imagine that you are blind and ask yourself how you would like this image to be described to you.

On this example page, this image has the following alternative description:

Yamaha Outboard Motors

While this does include the targeted keywords, it also clearly describes the actual image.

What follows would be considered an inappropriate use of image alt tags and may cause a Google penalty against your page and/or domain:

Gainesville FL Yamaha Outboard Motors for sale Yamaha Boat Motors Cheap Yamaha Outboard Boats for sale in Gainesville FL Florida Boat Motors in Gainesville FL Outboard Yamaha boat motors boat engines Gainesville boats for sale boat motors Florida Yamaha boats motors FL Yamaha Gainesville FL Yamaha

If you were blind and reading through this page, which one would you rather hear as a description of the image?

The first is a great quality indicator that both visually impaired people and Google will reward you for; the second would be considered spam and would entice Google to slap you with a penalty.

It is important to remember that Google values and rewards utility. When writing content for your website, it is best to have a light touch with the keywords you want to rank for. Describe your product or service clearly and provide as much utility as you can with appropriate authoritative links to useful data or tools, clear H1 category headings, and relevant images and videos.

Content

Bottom line is that content is king. There are a lot of great strategies for Google domination, but the bottom line is that there is no tricking Google. That is the secret; you need to understand exactly what Google wants and then just do it. Google wants to provide people with exactly what they are looking for when they are looking for it. You want to make sure that you create the most interesting, relevant, timely, and consistent content that you possibly can.

In addition to relevant content you want to make sure that you create unique content. There is nothing worse than duplicate content (besides content that sucks). If you have duplicate content, then you will not get ranked on Google. You can't cheat Google; you can't use or reuse the same content on multiple pages within a website. You also cannot cut and paste random content from Google or any other search engine and use it on your website and expect to get ranked. Nor can you expect to cut and paste partial pieces of content from different sources on the Internet and sew them together like Frankenstein on your website and expect to get ranked on Google. It's not going to happen. Just like when we were in school (some of you still might be in school), you couldn't hand in a term paper or book report that was plagiarized. The same goes for Google. You can't steal other people's content and think Google will give you SEO credit for it. As a matter of fact, there are lots of free and paid software programs that can check for duplicate content and or plagiarized content:

• www.grammarly.com
• www.plagtracker.com
• http://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/ This one comes with SEO tools:
  • Article Rewriter
  • Keyword Position
  • Pagerank Checker
  • Backlink Maker
• There are more sites and resources—all you have to do is Google plagiarism checker seo, and this will show up for page one Google:www.google.com/#q=plagiarism+checker+seo

Conclusion

My disclaimer is that I could write an entire book on SEO and Google's page one dominance as it relates to a web page or onsite SEO. However, this is a unique book with a very unique and powerful strategy: Googleopoly. The true power of Googleopoly is in the synergy of utilizing multiple initiatives simultaneously to achieve Google page one dominance. Synergy is defined as two or more agents that come together whose effect is greater together than their individual effects. In the game of Monopoly, Boardwalk is awesome in itself, and Park Place is a great property to own, too. They provide impressive payouts, but put them together and you have the ultimate monopoly. Throw some hotels on them and forget about it!

As the power of synergy relates to this book, each of the strategies we discuss in future chapters is beyond effective and compelling on its own. As a matter of fact, a lot of people have been successful and effective with just utilizing each of these strategies alone. But if you combine each of these individual awesome opportunities, you are going to create an incredible synergistic strategy, second to none. And this, my friends, is how you are going to win the game of Googleopoly!

With that being said, I chose to go deep into this chapter for onsite SEO for multiple reasons. First and foremost, as I have said before, even though there are numerous strategies within Googleopoly and Google page one domination, your website is your anchor. And all of the details throughout Chapter 4 will prove to be invaluable for strategies in optimizing video, social media, blogs, focus sites, and so on.

Next Evolution in Onsite SEO

Your opponent owns Pacific Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue. He or she is rounding the corner, with eyes on the prize. What will happen next? Will he or she score the perfect roll and land on North Carolina Avenue, to secure the monopoly? Or will he or she fall short and be sent to jail? Or maybe, just maybe, he or she will overroll by one and land dead smack in the middle, leaving it all to chance—hello community chest.

I have outlined and detailed many powerful techniques, strategies, and secrets thus far to achieve Google page one domination. However, to win the game of Googleopoly, you must think four to five moves in advance. You must anticipate both what Google might change or how it might modify its search algorithms, and you must also anticipate what and how people are going to search. If you can predict or try to predict how things are going to evolve, you will not only compete but also lead the way and dominate on search engines. Making logical predictions regarding Google and its users is one of the most important aspects of winning Googleopoly.

Don't freak out and think, “How in the world can I predict what Google is going to do?” All you have to do is be cognizant of how you would search. What would you like answers to? If you were in need of answers, what would you type into Google? What would your children type into Google? What would your parents type into Google? Basically, just begin with the end in mind. I get it—Google can be intimidating because it is a multibillion-dollar, publicly traded corporation, but put that to the side for a second and look at www.Google.com. What do you see? I see simplicity! I see a white page with a search bar! Google has always tried to keep it simple and to the point. So, it might seem like an unrealistic goal to anticipate Google, but here is the secret advice: Try to figure out how Google can make things more relevant, more up to date, faster, and in the exact format that a searcher is searching, and you are well on your way to a proactive strategy!

Use this book, which is saturated with experience, secrets, tips, strategies, and resources, all provided to give you an unfair competitive advantage and the knowledge necessary to be ahead of everyone else. This is imperative in order for you to make the absolute best decisions regarding the way you invest your time and money in your marketing initiatives.

In order to plan for the future, though, you need to have a basic understanding of the web's past, as well as the road map for where it's headed. Most people have probably heard of the terms Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, but few know details about the transition.

Web 1.0 is known as the “static” or “read-only” web. Up until the late 1990s, there was little to no interaction on actual websites. By the time the year 2000 rolled around, however, sites like LiveJournal and Blogger were giving users a simple way to publish to the web. From there, social networking sites like MySpace and social news sites like Digg formed new types of online interactions that shaped what we now call social media. This ability to interact online dramatically changed the way people used the web. Around this time, keyword-heavy content and optimization were common SEO strategies.

What's coming now is the Semantic Web, which will define Web 3.0 and act as the next dramatic change to the web. These changes will include semantic markup, hyperpersonalized search, and deductive reasoning that will provide the most relevant results for a user's search query.

Googleopoly strategists are beginning to see these changes put into practice today, as Google makes a push for sites to use semantic markup in order to allow its search engine to read the web the same way you and I do.

With its 2013 Hummingbird algorithm update, Google took the first step toward the future of Web 3.0. The reason this update was so important is because it allows Google to gauge a user's intent like never before.

For example, if I search for “2012 Nissan Altima” now, I get a broad list of results that vary from pure information to reviews to dealer inventory and third-party providers, like edmunds.com, KBB, cars.com, AutoTrader, and so on. The future of search, however, will be dominated by long, detailed queries, such as “I would like to purchase a black 2012 Nissan Altima with less than 30,000 miles.” This will allow very differentiated results from someone looking to do research on the same vehicle who might search with the phrase “I want to read all of the critical reviews on the 2012 Nissan Altima.”

The future of search is context—not just content and links. Google's recent algorithm updates have taken action to ensure its future results become more about relevancy, as well as to weed out bad results from sites attempting to game the system and punish sites that feature duplicate content.

Car dealers have been particularly hurt by these recent updates due to poor practices from website providers using outdated systems featuring built-in duplicate content. Modern developers and website providers that deal with inventory use the “rel=canonical” term in their code to let search engines know that a particular set of duplicate content serves a legitimate purpose.

Let's think back to that 2012 Nissan Altima. Every Nissan dealer on the planet has the same Nissan Altimas. There may be some different colors or a few different options, but when we visit an inventory page on a dealer's website, all of the information about each vehicle is essentially the same—power windows, power door locks, CD player, alloy wheels, and so forth. The long list of standard equipment and options is duplicate content. Canonicalization was created to allow sites to tell search engines, “I have a lot of these things and the purpose isn't to spam search results.”

Google assigns trust, authority, and value to a page based on relationships. If a car dealership has 500 vehicles in stock, that's 500 pages of potential duplicate content. Every page on a website is linked to every other page on a website through various links and navigation. Those links create relationships between all of the pages on the site. If those relationships are poor (i.e., lots of duplicate content pages being interlinked with quality pages), then the entire site's level of trust and authority can effectively be brought down as a result.

Now, imagine what happens if you don't tell Google that your inventory isn't duplicate content spam. Those relationships become severely damaged. As a result, every page on the site is devalued by each additional page of duplicate content—all because a simple piece of code wasn't properly implemented. We see this on over 90 percent of car dealership websites today.

If a car dealership site's inventory features multiple iterations of the same product, there is an easy way to check whether your website is utilizing the canonical tag. Navigate to one of your inventory pages—making sure it's a product that you carry more than one of—and right-click your mouse button and click “View Source” (not available in the Safari web browser). A pop-up will open, full of the code that makes up the front-end structure of your website. Do a “Find/Replace” search (use Command + F or CTRL + F on your computer) and now type in “canonical.”

Did that search find and highlight anything on the page? If not, your product pages are not using the proper markup, which means your site is telling Google, “Hey, we're duplicating content all across our site, despite the fact that it violates your guidelines!”

There are many other types of markup, such as those detailed by Schema.org, that this book won't go into; however, this will give you an idea of red flags to look for and/or topics to discuss with whomever is providing your business's website.