Whether it is your first time coming into contact with the Google Gods or you are wanting to make a good impression following an unfortunate ding to your overall search engine rankings, it can be daunting to know just how to impress the search engine giant. With so many mysteries about how the search engine evaluates our websites and brands, many feel as if it is a hopeless cause to constantly be viewed positively by Google. Despite there being a thousand different metrics and variables that can affect how Google sees you, a few simple considerations can go a long way. Whether your website is brand new and you are preparing for an initial indexing or your brand has been on the web for years, here is a quick checklist to walk-through if you want to impress Google.

Inspect the Design

A properly-designed website is important for a variety of reasons, both aesthetic and functional. Perhaps most importantly, a good design means that visitors can read the content clearly, find what they need, and are not given an impression that it is unprofessional. If visitors are turned off by your design, they are more likely to leave – this increases bounce rates and tells Google that your site isn’t relevant. In addition, design inspection must also consider whether the search engine is capable of pinging links and content on every page of your website; unlinked pages on your website will not be found by Google! In addition, a mobile-responsive design that allows the website to be seen on all devices easily is absolutely mandatory in 2015 and beyond.

Inspect the Framework

While design may seem like framework, we mean something a bit different. Various elements of your website can put Google off if they are not working properly or as intended. Consider for instance your hosting provider: if the servers on which your site are not top-notch, then your pages may load at a slower rate. This will affect your overall rankings with Google. Through the use of a website auditing tool, you can check to be sure that there are no broken links on your website and that no pages are giving errors – those that do will not be indexed by the search engine. Many of these audit tools will also provide a variety of other technical assessments in the event anything – such as basic code – is off in some capacity.

Inspect the Communication

The message you convey to your visitors is absolutely crucial. Quality content will carry a website above and beyond any other niche SEO consideration, and without quality content, a site cannot be successful for long. It has been shown that Google loves longer content, so aim for posts and pages that feature at least 700 words of quality, relevant and original content. An organic use of keywords relevant to the search results in which you wish to appear is also recommended. In addition to content featured on your site, content to which you link is just as important. Google tends to like “social websites”, or those that link to other websites around the web. While it is important to be pinging links to other websites with quality content, it is even more important that quality, highly-ranked websites link back to you. If you need help figuring out which sites are linking to you, the use of a link analyzer is highly recommended.