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4 Things You Don't Know About Your Google Ranking

Wedding Professionals:

Since Google opened for business, they have been changing their rules. They are constantly changing the way that they rank and index websites. This makes our lives difficult as we think about the importance of getting our websites in front of the countless brides who are searching for wedding businesses online.

If you think that you know the rules of search engine optimization (SEO), those rules might actually be outdated.

Here are four SEO rules that have drastically changed over the last few years:

Keyword Stuffing. Years ago, it was easy to manipulate web page rankings by mentioning a particular keyword over and over again. These days, Google penalizes sites for doing that. Instead, create useful and relevant content for people - not for search engines. I've heard that an important keyword should only take up about 7% of a web page's entire content. In addition, make sure keywords are present in a web page's header, subhead, title tags and meta description.
Blog Comment Spamming. Many people drop links to their websites on other sites within blog comments. In many cases, Google now ignores these links. Instead, create well-written, engaging content on your site and other websites will be more inclined to link to it.
Meta Tag Optimization. There was a time when meta tags (invisible coding on your web pages) played a large role in a website’s search ranking. You no longer have to waste your time with this because Google has publicly stated that they now ignore these tags.
Search Engine Submission. You used to have to submit your website to the search engines. Some companies even charge you to do this for you. Don’t pay them for this. Google is sophisticated enough now that the search engine will find your website on its own. Yes, it may take a few weeks but it will likely happen. To speed up this process, create profiles on social media sites and have those profiles link to your website. Google will see that activity and will index your website faster than if you hadn’t done that.

Do you have any SEO tips that you would like to share with our wedding forum? If so, please share them below.

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About This Blog: Christine Dyer is the Creator and Founder of BridalTweet. Christine has an MBA in marketing and shares over ten years of marketing expertise with the wedding community. In this weekly blog called Supercharge Your Wedding Business, you'll find advice on an array of wedding business topics such as how to market to brides, social networking, wedding PR, wedding sales, vendor networking, branding, pricing and much more. Please pass this news along to your own professional wedding network. To receive this advice in your email inbox each week, Sign Up for a Free BridalTweet Membership.

Comment by Lisa Taylor on May 11, 2010 at 5:06am: thanks for this helpful information as we are currently redoing our website.

Comment by Laura Turner ZiXiu4U on May 11, 2010 at 5:24am: Thanks for the info. SEO tools and network marketing have drastically changed over the years. The key thing to remember now is relevant, high quality content is the key. The joy is watching your ranking go up when the plan you set in motion works. We rank #10 on Google search page one for our most important keyword, our product name and our site just launched 4/1/10.

Comment by Malinda Kapfhammer on May 11, 2010 at 5:35am: Thanks so much for this useful information! I can stop stressing over Meta Tags!

Comment by Kristen Leigh Conklin on May 11, 2010 at 5:51am: You rock Christine!

Comment by Megan M. Battistella on May 11, 2010 at 5:54am: Nice one...too many people are obsessed with the idea of the perfect "SEO formula." Granted, it's important to stay up on things like that...but your point was exactly right, having excellent content will sell itself.

Comment by WicksnCandlesticks on May 11, 2010 at 6:41am: I am going through my certification now for SEO (search engine optimization). I am not sure where some people are getting their information from but Google still does read your meta tags, but it also uses keyword content and phrases, navigation, keyword usage, images, links, among other things on the website to increase your website rankings. You Tube Videos, Flickr, and Squidoo will also get your rankings high up on the internet as well.

Comment by Bridal Image on May 11, 2010 at 8:35am: Thank you for SEO info.

Comment by BellaFaccias Personalized Chocol on May 11, 2010 at 10:42am: Interesting Topic. Thanks for your information. .

Comment by Wendy@RhapsodyinBloom on May 12, 2010 at 11:42pm: I have added a link to my site (upon request) to comments on other blogs, and they have shown up in Google Analytics. I don't know how much traffic it's driven to my site, but the Google bot does find it. I don't think any of these things is a waste of time.

Comment by Elizabeth Thomas on May 13, 2010 at 4:11am: I am passionate about SEO (and train non-techies because I love it so much.) Here is what I'd add:

Google rank by itself doesn't mean much of ANYTHING! I had a Google rank 5 website and crap traffic. It just meant we had highly regarded websites linking to us. When we revamped everything, we gained tremendous traffic. AND, because we also really focused on our branding, our traffic had a much better conversion (the action from seeing the website to picking up the phone.)

Meta tags *ARE* still important for the bride! As I tell people, step one is showing up at all on page one of a result, but step two is having an interesting, engaging reason for brides to click on you. The PAGE title is one piece (and that's a meta tag.) If you know SEO, then your page names reflect the file name and that all reflects a pressure they're feeling and the query they're asking. Always name it exactly what you're talking about, not just "Article 3." The Meta description is taken from the content of your website but not always...and that's a great place to "sell" why someone should read the page. I always have my sales hat, trying to make it intriguing or explain what the page is going to address. And the final piece that isn't a meta tag, but is still important is your domain name because it's also taken into consideration when you "show up on page 1 of google." That gives some bit of information on whether you'll be clicked on. If you are just another "wed" domain name, you may not stick out with the 9 other websites that also have a generic "wed" website name.

Hope this helps.