Welcome to Part 2 of our Google Love Series. If you are reading this article then most likely you are in a relationship with Google. That being said, you need to know a little about visitor engagement to keep your relationship strong.

6 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself if You Want to Keep Google Happy

Take The Google Relationship Quiz

1. Does your website fail to establish credibility?

    ___Yes, my website design lacks the professionalism my visitors demand.

    ___ No, my website design is professional and well organized.

2. Is your website message confusing?

    ___ Yes, my site fails to be clear about what I am offering, I’m confused.

    ___ No, I have clear and relevant content on my site.

3. Does your website fail to compel visitors to act?

    ___ Yes, my hastily composed website fails to interest any visitor. It sucks!

    ___ No, my website generates interest and promotes visitor interaction.

4. Is your website is difficult to navigate and use?

    ___ Yes, my website is put together with Band-Aids and it’s hard to find even my phone number.

    ___ No, my website is easy to navigate and well structured.

5. Do broken links and old content fail to inspire confidence?

    ___ Yes, we have links to nowhere and our lack of commitment is obvious.

    ___ No, we run the appropriate SEO tools against our site to ensure all the links work.

6. Do your website links take visitors off-site?

    ___ Yes, we get carried away with off-site links.

    ___ No, we know this can be dangerous and keep our off-site links to a manageable level.

Communication is the Key to a Good Relationship

You don’t hear much talk about meta descriptions these days but they perform a very valuable role. Think of a meta description as an advertisement for your site or product/service. Meta descriptions need to be written in such a way that encourages visitors to click through to your website when they view its listing in the SERPs. If you can improve the ratio of views-to-clicks your website listing receives in search pages, it’s highly possible you will see an improvement in search engine rank within a week. An easy way to do this is by working on your titles and meta descriptions creating good communication with your audience.

Keep Your Promise to Your Significant Others

Depending on what you’re asking a visitor to click, you will be employing one of two marketing strategies. The trick here is to make sure that you are doing what you say you are going to do. Keep your promises and you will prevail.

1. The ‘Click-to-Content’ Promise

A ‘Click-to-Content’ promise is a type of click that normally arises from web users clicking on a textual link. The anchor text used in the link may be a simple keyword or a keyword phrase. It also may have been the title to a post or page on the website itself. Whatever the anchor text is, you need to make sure when visitors land on your website they see content that fulfills the promise you made in the anchored text.

It’s really simple! If a visitor clicked on an anchor text link that says, ”Lose Weight Now,” the visitor should be taken to a page about how to loose weight…now. Visitors clicking on a link promising the latest celebrity gossip won’t be pleased to find a page highlighting the benefits of a colon cleanse. You get the drift.

Google expects that when people click on your link they will be directed to a relevant topic. Google does not like trickery or misdirection. Delivering on your promises increases the time visitors will spend on your site as well as reducing bounce rates. All these factors are important for building the trust and relevancy necessary for some Google love.

2. The ‘Do-Something’ Promise

This style of click-enticement is often referred to as a ‘Call-to-Action’. It occurs when a website wants a visitor to perform a certain action. For example, “Click here for your Free Weight Loss Guide,” or “Start Your Free Trial of ‘Whatever’ by clicking here.”

Basically, the link is instructing visitors to do something to receive a specific result. In the above examples, it’s a simple click. The main rule is to be very clear about what the visitor will be receiving or viewing should they click. Lying will get you nowhere.

If you fail to deliver on your promise, visitors will leave. This increases website bounce rates. Honesty builds trust. Trust is very handy when it comes to word-of-mouth promotion. A visitor clicks your link and is directed to whatever was promised. The visitor likes what he or she found and tells a friend or maybe the happy visitor posts on a popular blog or forum, tweets it, and puts the link on a Facebook page. This means free advertising and more welcome attention from Google. Good times.

A Little Bit About Link Love

Website links are a huge topic and far beyond the scope of this guide. However, here’s a very brief bit of advice about links: Don’t try to force them within your content, love them gently.

• Content Links: A link should be added only when it’s relevant and natural. Try to place relevant links every 300-500 words of content. This isn’t a steadfast rule or something monitored by Google. It’s nothing more than a helpful loving ratio to keep in mind.
• External Links: Links to external topically relevant authority sites is another good strategy for highlighting the relevancy of your content. Authority site links build trust. When Google follows these links and finds they point to reputable websites, it shines favorably on your website’s reputation.
• Internal Linking: Don’t forget the importance of internal linking. This means adding links to website content which point to other relevant pages on your website. Internal links help with ranking. They help pass rank from popular pages to weaker pages and help Google to index all of your website’s pages.
• Link Guide: As a guide, think about linking to your own pages 70% of the time and to external pages 30% of the time (again not steadfast rule, just a handy ratio to keep in mind).

Remember, in theory you need to please the public, not the search engines and it should not be one or the other. It’s possible to please both at once. Google has made it quite clear, with its recent algorithm changes, that websites promoting visitor interaction and engagement will earn big Google hugs. Remember what we said in the previous Google Love article: It’s the little things that matter.

Cement Your Relationship

• Have enticing meta descriptions, titles, and links.
• Give visitors a reason to click.
• Make sure visitors are pleased they clicked.
• Encourage more clicks with content relevancy and a strong linking structure.
• Sit back and bask in the Google Love.