This segment provides tips on:

• Creating Content
• Linking to Search Results
• Getting Listed
• Improving Your PageRank
• Advertising Your Website
• Generating Revenue using AdSense

The information in this section is based on my experience in designing and developing Google Guide, which is now the top result for the queries Google tutorial, Google guide, using Google, Google stock symbol, and Google favorite features.

Note: There are thousands of sites devoted to developing a website and optimizing its performance. So, should you need or want more detailed information, just search for it. But be careful: there are sites that charge good money for bad information.

Want to give a presentation on developing a website or print the files in this segment of Google Guide? Then check out the links below.

• Printable version of Developing a Website
• A presentation of Developing a Website (fewer words/page)
• Printable version of my Developing a Website presentation

tags (keywords): developing websites, summary

Following each tip on creating content is information about how I developed Google Guide and improved its content.

Create useful high-quality material that is of interest to users.

Back in 2002, I created Google Guide to get feedback on material I was developing for a tutorial book on Google search for most users’ use just a fraction of Google’s capabilities.

The goal of Google Guide is to make searching even easier for novices and experienced users.

Design your website for the blind and deaf, not for spiders or search bots.

Search bots can’t see visuals or hear sound files. Make your titles, anchor text, and ALT tags descriptive and relevant.

Nelson Blachman, my father, is blind and is a wonderful reviewer and beta tester for Google Guide.

Present information in more than one way.

People have different needs and preferences. That’s why Google Guide presents material in different formats, e.g.,

• cheat sheets (quick reference or short summary)
• online tutorials
• problem sets and exercises
• quizzes
• feature time line
• printable files

Studying Google Guide logs, I’ve learned which pages are most popular among users and I’m focusing my attention on providing users more of what they like.

Design names of pages to reflect what’s on the page.

Google considers the text in the URL when indexing the page.

A few years ago I replaced unhelpful names with more descriptive ones.

• page_6.html -> select_terms.html
• page_12.html -> google_works.html
• page_13.html -> results_page.html

Include words on your web pages that users are likely to specify in a query when searching for your content.

I strive to convey information concisely and clearly, rather than incorporate particular words on my pages.

Design your site logically. Include site maps. Link to each page that you want accessible from a search engine.

Google Guide includes links from one page to the next and previous pages, a table of contents, a navigation bar, topic links at the beginning of each part, summaries, and links to relevant material both from Google Guide and outside sources.

Usually Google Guide opens a new browser window when a user clicks on a link outside of Google Guide.

Submit a sitemap so that Google will know about the structure of your website.

Google Sitemaps provides helpful statistics and information to it’s users, including:

• top search queries that most often return pages on each site
• pages that Googlebot had trouble crawling
• common words in each site
• common works in external links to each site

Strive to keep your pages short and about at most a few topics.

A user is more likely to find what she seeks on a short page and material of interest is more likely to be on the user’s screen.

Sparingly use dynamic content, e.g., JavaScript, Flash, DHTML, etc.

Search engine spiders are able to index plain text and html more easily than flashy pages. Googlebot tends not to crawl pages that consist only of dynamic content and pages that have dynamic content in navigation links in the page. Such pages are likely to be left out of Google’s index and search results.

I initially wrote Google Guide in HTML. Jerry Peek and I have translated Google Guide into a WordPress blog format.

Correct misspellings.

Users are more likely to search for the correct spelling.

Seek feedback and use it to improve your site.

Users and web logs are great sources for feedback. To encourage suggestions and corrections, I respond to email quickly and acknowledge those who contribute ideas that improve Google Guide.

Learn from your logs.

Check your web logs. Try to figure out how and why users are coming to your site. If you suspect that users may seek information that isn’t on your site, consider adding it.

I noticed that users were choosing the Google Guide Stock Quotes page after entering the query [ Google stock symbol ].

So I added, at the top of the page,

and followed that text with a Google search box that was ready to run the search.

Eliminate errors.

Check your web logs and run one or more website validators, e.g., W3C Validation Service, to identify problems with the coding of your website. Remove broken links and correct invalid html. Check Google Sitemaps to find out whether search bots are able to crawl your site.

Resources

When putting together content for this page, I came across wonderful pages on creating content for websites, including:

• Envisioning a Site That Won’t Be Featured In suck.com
• Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: 26 Steps to 15K a Day
• How can I create a Google-friendly site?
• Google Webmaster Guidelines
• What is a Sitemap file and why should I have one?

If you know or run across any other great sites on creating content for your website, please let me know.

tags (keywords): developing websites

If you know HTML, it’s relatively easy to make links to Google’s search results. Following each link in the examples below is the code that produces it.

See search results in the same browser window

[ Google tutorial create link ]

is generated from

[&nbsp;<a href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=Google+tutorial+create+link”>Google tutorial create link</a>&nbsp;]

See search results in a new window

Open a new window containing the search results for the query

[ Google tutorial create link ]

by adding target="_blank":

[&nbsp;<a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=Google+tutorial+create+link”>Google tutorial create link</a>&nbsp;]

Search link must be valid

The URL — that is, the text shown in Italics here: href="http://URL-GOES-HERE” — must be valid. For instance:

• The URL shouldn’t contain any spaces. Use a plus sign (+) in place of each space.
• Certain characters can’t be used literally; they must be encoded into a form like %nn.

For example, the query [ “a song for you” ] would be encoded in a URL as http://www.google.com/search?q=%22a+song+for+you%22, where each quote (") is replaced by %22.

The easiest way to find the correct encoding is to type your query into a Google Search box. Then run the search and look at the resulting URL in your web browser’s address box (which is usually in the toolbar at the top of the window). Copy and paste the parts you need from the URL into your HTML code.

AdSense for Search

With AdSense for Search, you can easily create a revenue stream at the same time as provide a Google search box like the following.

Fill the search box with a query by specifying a value the attribute “value”, which AdSense for Search initializes to the null string (”").

Note: If you fill the search box with a query, Google may not share revenue with you.

AdSense for WebSearch + SiteSearch

AdSense for WebSearch + SiteSearch allows users to search the web or the specific site(s) of your choice.

	Web www.googleguide.com

Note: AdSense for Search centers the search box on the page while AdSense for WebSearch+SiteSearch doesn’t. Of course, you can modify the AdSense code to place the search box wherever you want on the page.

Exercises

These problems are intended to give you practice in creating links to Google’s search results.

1. On one of your web pages, create a link to a Google search result.
2. On one of your web pages, create a link that opens a new window and displays a Google search result.
3. Use AdSense for Search to create a Google search box on a page in your website. You’ll need to sign up for an AdSense account first.
4. On one of your web pages, using AdSense for WebSearch + SiteSearch, create a Google search box with a radio button for searching your site. Get an AdSense account before doing this problem.

tags (keywords): developing websites, search box, URLs

How does Google find your site and list it? Merely registering your domain on the Internet isn’t enough.

As soon as your site is available on the Internet, you can submit it to Google by completing the add URL form at www.google.com/addurl.html.

Another way to be listed — and to raise your PageRank too — is by getting other websites to link to yours. After that, when Google’s robots or spiders, known as Googlebot, crawl the web, they should run across your site within a month or so. As we mentioned in the page How Google Works, there are two types of crawls, fresh crawls and deep crawls. Your site most likely will first get a fresh crawl in which only pages Google deems most important are crawled. After Google runs a deep crawl of your site, most, if not all of the pages on your website that contain links from other pages will be crawled and subsequently listed on Google — except pages that are included in the file robots.txt, which lists pages that you don’t want Google to crawl and pages containing code that Google is unable to parse.

Recently Google developed Google Base, a service, like a bulletin board, for posting all types of content, e.g., coupons, reviews, jobs, housing, events, tickets, merchandise. Things for sale may get cross posted on Froogle and locations may get cross posted from Google Base to Google Maps.

For more about how to get your site listed on Google, visit www.google.com/webmasters/1.html.

How can you remove websites, individual pages, cached pages, and outdated or dead links from Google’s index? Visit www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html.

tags (keywords): crawling, developing websites, PageRank, spider

PageRank is Google’s system for ranking web pages. A page with a higher PageRank is deemed more important and is more likely to be listed above a page with a lower PageRank.

Google describes PageRank:

In other words, Google conducts “elections” in which each web page casts votes for web pages with hyperlinks to those pages. But unlike a democracy a page can have more than one vote and links from pages with high PageRank are given more weight (according to their ranking) and thus help to improve the targets’ PageRank.

See the PageRank of a page with the PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (an advanced feature). The more green the higher the PageRank.

Compare the relative PageRank of your site with other related sites by viewing the green bar to the left of a website in the web page section (near the bottom of the page) of the Google Directory page. (If your site isn’t listed in the Directory, that’s another way to improve its PageRank. See www.dmoz.org/add.html.)

In the next section, Improving Your PageRank, I offer suggestions for how to improve the PageRank of your webpages.

tags (keywords): developing websites, PageRank

Below are suggestions for publicizing your site — and improving its PageRank — based on our experience getting the word out about Google Guide.

Include useful high-quality information on your site.

Create content that users want and will share with others.

Submit your site to various web directories and reference sites.

A web directory “specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links,” according to HighSearchRanking.com.

Post your site’s URL (web address) to popular web directories including Open Directory Project (ODP), Yahoo!, and LookSmart. Also post your URL to online reference, e.g., Wikipedia, industry-specific expert sites, blogs, etc.

Publicize your site to everyone with whom you communicate.

Add your site’s URL, e.g., www.googleguide.com, to every piece of communication you initiate. The TechSoup (The Technology Place for Nonprofits) article, Publicizing Your Web Site: Getting the message out there, recommends that “your Web address should be listed everywhere that your phone/fax number and mailing address,” e.g.,

• Business cards
• Letterhead
• Newsletters
• Brochures
• Press Releases
• Fax cover sheets
• Email signatures

Write a newsletter and send it out.

Inform people what’s new or noteworthy on your site. The newsletter will remind people about your site and encourage them to visit to find interesting content.

Provide a Rich Site Summary (RSS).

RSS is also known as Really Simple Syndication. JISC describes RSS as “a lightweight XML format for distributing news headlines and other content on the Web.”

In addition to making it easy for other sites to distribute your headlines and content, your RSS feed will be indexed by popular Blog search engines, including Technorati, BlogSearch, and Ask.com Bloglines.

Ask other high-quality websites to link to your website.

Getting other “good” websites to link to yours usually helps your website’s PageRank and ranking on Google.

Note: If your site links to delisted websites, your website might also be removed from Google’s index.

Provide motivation for highly ranked websites to link to yours.

Getting highly ranked sites to link to yours will improve your ranking more than getting many poorly ranked sites to link to yours.

Note: If Google suspects that you’ve traded links with other sites for the sole purpose of improving your ranking, it might penalize or blacklist your site.

Check out a site before you link back.

When you receive a request for a link, check the site before you link back. Is it a site worthy of your link, i.e., vote of confidence? Would a link be of value to your page’s visitors?

Tell the press about your site.

Telling the press may not get your website publicity. After making Google Guide live, I emailed local, national, and international press and got a poor response to our publicity.

Next I emailed journalists who specialize in search engines, but again few wrote articles about Google Guide.

Then I emailed reviewers of books on using Google. A handful responded. Some wrote that Google Guide was for novices; others wrote that Google Guide was tailored for advanced users. Wanting to make Google Guide appeal to novices and experts alike, I indicated sections that would appeal to particular users, e.g.,

• If you have little or no experience with Google, read on. Otherwise, skip to the next section, titled “Go to the First Result.”
• We recommend that you skip ahead to Part II: Understanding Search Results unless you’re an experienced Google user or you want to know how to use Google’s advanced operators.

After several months of emailing potential users and posting to websites, libraries, schools, and users began linking to Google Guide.

I tried again to get national press coverage by contacting John Markoff from the New York Times. After a few attempts, I was quoted in an article about Search Engine Wars and afterwards Google Guide got over 50,000 unique visitors/day for the following week and traffic has been good ever since.

On the basis of a suggestion from Matt Vance, I created the Google Guide Cheat Sheet and announced it on Slashdot, which generated great publicity, along with a few flames; within 24 hours, the Cheat Sheet went from being ranked so poorly I couldn’t even find it to being ranked #2 (after Google’s cheat sheet).

Keep your website up.

If your website is not accessible for an extended period of time, Google may reduce the ranking of your site.

Give away content.

I publish Google Guide under a Creative Commons License to enable others to copy, distribute, and make derivative works, as long as they give Nancy Blachman credit and link to Google Guide.

Translate your website into foreign languages.

If you don’t know a foreign language, find others that do. Erik Hoy, a librarian, emailed me asking if he could use some material from Google Guide on Copenhagen Main Library’s website. I suggested that he translate the whole thing into Danish, which he did.

Recently Google Guide was translated into Hebrew.

Search Google for your website.

Instead of entering your URL into your browser, search Google for your site. Google is more apt to improve the ranking of a site that users seek and visit than one that gets no traffic from Google.

When I first made this site publicly available, Google Guide wasn’t in the first 100 sites on searches for [ Google guide ]. Thanks to the sites that linked to Google Guide and users who clicked on Google Guide in their search results, Google Guide is in the top ten results for many queries that relate to the content of the site. Being listed so highly on Google has improved the traffic flow to Google Guide.

Note: For the top ranked site, Google sometimes includes useful links from within that site.

Avoid devious tactics to improve your ranking.

If Google suspects that you are trying to deceive it web crawler and thus its users by including hidden text, misleading or repeated words, pages that don’t match your sites description, deceptive redirects, duplicate site or pages, or other disingenuous tactics, then Google may delist your site from its index.

And finally…

In addition to considering the number of links to your page and the ranking of the linking page, to compute a page’s PageRank, Google considers hundreds of factors including

• how fast a site is gaining links
• how long the links persist
• when your site acquired the links
• the click through rate (CTR) of Google’s search results, cached pages, favorites on the Google Toolbar
• the stickiness of your site (i.e., the effectiveness of your site in retaining individual users)

These factors and many others are described in the article “Great Site Ranking in Google The Secret’s Out” on Buzzle.com.

Google periodically changes how it calculates a page’s importance, thereby resulting in shifts in rankings, known as a Google Dance. Google Guide’s placement in Google’s search results sometimes changes when Google modifies or enhances their indexing algorithms.

I don’t try to keep up with the latest search engine optimization tricks. Instead I strive to make searching Google easier by educating users about Google services, capabilities, and features. When I am successful, sites link to Google Guide pages and increase their ranks and importance to Google.

Here are links to a few pages that discuss how to publicize your website and improve the ranking of your web pages.

• Publicizing Your Web Site
• Publicizing Your Site (Without Irritating Everyone on the Net)

In the next section, Advertising Your Website, I’ll tell you how I increase traffic through running inexpensive ads.

tags (keywords): developing websites, directory, PageRank, translation

To increase traffic and to learn about Google’s advertising services, I became an AdWords advertiser. I designed simple text ads, chose queries and keywords the ads should match, and specified the maximum we were willing to spend on an advertising campaign. Google charges us only when someone clicks on one of our ads.

AdWords contributes greatly to Google’s bottom line, i.e., it’s profits. Google offers many resources to educate website owners about AdWords. Rather than developing tutorial material on AdWords, which is likely to get outdated when Google enhances AdWords capabilities and features, I encourage you to learn from Google’s material and those of third parties.

• Interested in AdWords
• Demos and Guides
• Step-by-Step
• Tips for Success
• Editorial Guidelines

We increased the effectiveness of our advertising by following wonderful suggestions from Perry Marshall’s free 5-day course and from his Definitive Guide to Google AdWords, which you can learn about at www.perrymarshall.com/google/. We tested lots of ads targeted on many different queries and keywords until we found ones that got favorable responses from users, i.e., the ads that users clicked on. And Google has rewarded us by overrunning our ads, i.e., showing some of them from time to time at no cost to us.

tags (keywords): ads, developing websites

You can make money from Google AdSense by hosting

• Ads
• Link Units
• Google WebSearch
• Google WebSearch+SiteSearch
• Google Referral Links

Ads

Display ads that it deems relevant to the content of the page.

Link Units

Display a list of topics that Google deems relevant to the content of the page.

A page of related ads is displayed when a user clicks on a topic.

WebSearch

Provide web search and earn revenue from Google.

WebSearch + SiteSearch

Generate revenue by providing a query box for searching the web and the specific site(s) of your choice.

	Web www.googleguide.com

Referrals

Generate income by referring your users to Google products and search services.

Google Guide and AdSense

At first I was reluctant to run ads on Google Guide. I didn’t want to create any distractions that would lure visitors away from my site. But visitors leave even if I don’t run ads. So I ran ads at the bottom of a page because I thought they would distract only viewers who weren’t interested in my site. Few users clicked on the ads. Later I moved the ads to the top of a page. The response rate more than doubled and so did revenue.

Why did Google create AdSense? Many sites wanted to advertise and Google wanted more real estate, i.e., web pages, on which it could display ads. Web sites wanted a slice of Google’s revenue.

AdSense is a money-generating service for Google and it’s users. Unlike user services, Google provides a wealth of resources on AdSense, just a few of which I’ve listed below.

• AdSense Tour
• Interested in AdSense
• Optimization Tips
• Ad Formats

tags (keywords): ads, developing websites