With Google’s capabilities, for sure, it can discover new content around the digital realm. Still, having a sitemap ready can greatly enhance website crawling. If you need help on terms such as crawling and indexing, refer to my post on: Understanding How Search Engines Work. To be honest, a sitemap will not 100% ensure that your entire website will be crawled and indexed. However, it won’t hurt having one.

Sitemap is needed IF:

• The website is huge. If you have a humungous site, there may be pages that are missed by the website crawlers.
• Having many content that are orphan pages. What do I mean by orphaned pages? These are the pages are not linked together. You see, when a website crawler notices a link, it will scan all the links it sees. If a page does not contain a link, it will stop crawling. So, if you don’t specify on your sitemap, these pages without any links will never be discovered by search engines.
• Your site is still new. Like a said earlier, a website crawler scans every link they see and it will continue the process until there are no links in a page. If your website is fairly new, there would be no links about it. Having a specific sitemap will tell these web crawlers that they should check this link.
• Lastly, if you feature various multimedia content, then you should have a sitemap. Google looks for information about pictures and videos when searching for the latest news.

Sitemap is NOT necessary IF:

• You only manage a “tiny” site. By tiny, it means that the website could have 500 web pages or even less.
• The website is powered by Blogger, Wix, and other simple hosting services. Because if you signed up on these services, most propbably, there are already built-in pages and features, which includes a sitemap. So, no need for you to generate one for your small-scale website. To be sure, you can search your host’s help page and search for “sitemap.” Usually, it will give you a heads up if you need one or if it is automatically created for you.
• Internal links are firmly established. If Google can find the integral pages of your website, then a sitemap is not needed. If from the main page Google can already locate other important pages, it’s all good.
• Sitemaps are necessary in identifying multimedia files. So, if you don’t post any video content or image files, then, having a sitemap is not needed.   If your website does not aim to appear in the “video” and “image” search results, don’t bother generating one.

What Are Sitemaps Anyway?

A sitemap, usually .XML in format, is a file wherein all the website’s contents are listed. It provides the necessary information about each important page in a website. This include information about images, videos, and other contents of the website. Major search engines refer to the sitemaps provided in order to understand a website more clearly. With a sitemap, Google can quickly locate the important pages of your website. To know more about sitemaps, please refer to this Search Console help page.

For sure, you have been curious how search engines decide on what websites to put in the search results. When someone types in a question, what (or who) calls the shots?

Short answer: the search engine algorithms… and the algorithms decide depending on what information they know. Of course, they refer to the search engine’s index. If you want to know more about index, refer to Understanding How Search Engines Work.

S-E-A-R-C-H

If you want to know a longer version, read it below:

Search engine algorithms constantly evolve. They continually change depending on how Google will change. Back in 2001, online search is merely matching the query with a web page title. See, it seems so stupid back then. Now, search engines have adapted to the changing times. More parameters have been added when matching a query and a specific page. Take note: there are over 200 ranking factors implemented by Google.

To help you understand the matching process, here is what search engines do:

Step 1: Knowing the searcher’s intent.

• Of course, the search engine needs to know the query first. There should be an analysis of the search words.
• Assessing the words used to know its meaning. For instance, when someone types in “How to play Canon in D”, search engines will realize that someone is looking for a tutorial on how to play this piece. Hence, the algorithms will give YouTube videos as its search results.
• The same is true when someone will search for “Buy Japanese cheesecake….” The search engine will know that the cake is not your typical New York style cheesecake. It should be able to give results on specialty cake shops that sell fluffy cakes. Nowadays, search engines are smart enough to read between the lines. They even correct misspelled words.

Step 2: Looking for relevant pages.

• Next, search engines provide the best solution they can possibly give. They will scour their index for anything that matches the words used. Like what I said previously, if your web pages are not in the search engine’s index, your website won’t show up in any related search result.

Here are the important factors that search engines look into:

1. Page title and page contents – Google values relevant content. If your web page is relevant to a search query, it will surely show up.
2. Content type – if someone is searching for videos, the results will obviously be videos and not a mere text content.
3. Quality – content should be excellent. Google does not want a so-so content.
4. Date – this is extremely important for someone searching for news articles. If the content is something from 3 years ago, Google would not list that. It will only show timely and recent pages.
5. Popularity – this is in terms of the popularity of the page and not your entire website. If many people choose to click it when this particular keyword is typed, then Google sees it as a good indication. Also, when a page receives numerous backlinks, it means that the page is indeed useful. Thus, Google will rank it higher in the search results.
6. Language – not all searches are in English so Google needs to consider that as well.
7. Website Speed – if your page does not load fast, Google won’t even consider it as “useful” result. Fast loading pages definitely have an advantage!
8. Location – users specify their search sometimes. For example, “Popeyes in California” will yield Popeyes stores in California and NOT in Philadelphia.

SOURCE: (1)

For most websites, their goal is to be on top of the search results. Don’t care of the other details as long as the website is on the 1^st page of the SERPs. On a daily basis, how many times do you use Google? Do you know how it works? Precisely! This is why I came up with this post. We all use search engines whether for leisure or business… and yet, not everyone is knowledgeable about search engines.

The World of Google Search

Annually, there are over 2 trillion searchers done on Google. That’s about 100 billion Google searches for every month. Indeed, search engines have been embedded in our routine. We all rely to Google whenever we want to learn, we want to order food, we want to shop, and even when we want to entertainment.

Google strives to provide the best solutions to our queries. Whatever it may be. However, do you know how search engines – like Google – work? How does Google decide on what to put on the top spot in its search results?

Why Should You?

Whether you are a blogger, online entrepreneur, or website owner, you need to know how these things work. After all, you are a citizen of the internet. You need to know how search engines do their job.

For one, you can make a website that appeals to both users and search engines. If search engines can’t understand your website, then, what’s the point? You are just wasting your time and money!

Knowing the “How” Part

Basically, search engines are always looking for new information that could be helpful to its users. First, they discover information. Second, they organize the information according to the user’s search intent. Hence, the 2 important terms: crawling and indexing.

Crawling

Search engines can’t be everywhere. Google won’t have time to inspect each website. Instead, it has what you call website crawlers. These crawlers are disseminated to scan all corners of the Internet. They will be the one to discover new information.

The website crawlers visit websites and look the number of pages it has. They will check the contents. It is an endless cycle of scanning websites because the moment they see a link, they will scan the contents of that link. They will keep doing the same process and they will continually look for the changes made to a particular site. Thus, they will if pages are updates, deleted, or added.

On March 1, 2013, Google announced that it knows about 30 trillion pages on the web. Three years later, Google added 100 trillion more to that number. Yes, about 130 trillion pages discovered by 2016! That’s a huge milestone for Google!

Make it easier for the website crawlers.

Your job now is to make it faster for the crawlers to ‘read’ your website and its contents. Because if can’t, then, it will move to the next website. Website crawlers won’t waste time scanning one website alone. So, make sure it can scan your website without any hitches.

Go to the Google Search Console and provide details about your website. Next, build a sitemap so that crawlers will know the specific pages in your website. Google made a guide on how to create a sitemap. For more information, please refer to this help page.

Next? Understanding How Search Engines Work (Part 2)

SOURCE: (1)

Yes, links are important in SEO. If you build links within your website, it is called internal links. The links made on other websites are part of off-page SEO. More on that: 5 Surefire Techniques in Developing Backlinks

Linking your web pages is important in SEO. After all, a website is a series of interconnected web pages. If these pages aren’t connected, then, what’s the point?

Once a website crawler discovers a specific web page, it will then follow the links found within that page. Whether you are mentioning a link within or outside your website, the crawler’s job is to follow where it leads.

So, if they find a page that contains no other links, the web crawlers will scan the page and leave right away. Because it didn’t find any other links, it has no reason to stay and scan some more pages. It is best to link your other pages so the crawler has something to discover wherever they may go within your website.

Why are website crawlers doing this?

This to let the search engines know that you have made changes in your website. There are pages you just added.  Of course, there are millions of websites. How can search engines keep track of the changes? Through the help of web crawlers. When these crawlers find links, it will report back to the search engines that I discovered new pages today. For website crawler to do their job effectively, internal links are essential.

Here are some suggestions to follow when adding internal links:

• Use the appropriate words for your anchor text. Do not add a word just because it is an important keyword for your article.
• Add internal links if you think the topic relevant to what you are currently writing. If it’s not connected, then why link it, right?
• Do not add too much links in one page. Keep it around 10 links maximum!
• If you can, add the links in the beginning of the page or in the body. Never add them all by the end of your article. Always highlight relevant links first!

Let’s proceed to the external links.

Google has emphasized greatly on ranking high-quality sites. This is evident when they released significant algorithmic changes such as the Panda and Penguin updates. People were hesitant to add links because they think Google will penalize it. No, totally not true!

In fact, Google encourages everyone to link high-quality sites. This will definitely boost the website’s E – A – T. This is an acronym for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. When numerous websites will mention your website and provide links, this is a good sign for Google.

The URLs

You can’t talk about links without the URL. A good URL should only contain 255 characters or below. No spaces are allowed. If you wish to separate terms, hyphens are recommended. Like your page title and meta description, your URL should be unique. Just by looking at the link, one should have an idea what it is about.

Here are good URLs:

• https://www.phoenixsearchengineoptimization.com/on-page-elements-content-keywords-and-content-formatting/
• https://www.phoenixsearchengineoptimization.com/on-page-elements-page-title-and-meta-description/
• https://www.phoenixsearchengineoptimization.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-on-page-seo/

Here are bad URLs:

• https://www.phoenixsearchengineoptimization.com/kjsaiokamq/
• https://www.phoenixsearchengineoptimization.com/w487461seo/

Previously, I talked about the basics of on-page SEO. Now that you know, content is the number 1 priority in every website. Let’s proceed to another lengthy topic, which is the page title and meta description. These on-page SEO elements are also as important as the content you publish.

Below, I have listed some tips and tricks in order to optimize your page titles and meta descriptions for the better.

Before users can assess your actual content, they will have to look at the page title and meta description on the search results page. Not only that, there are also other websites on the SERPs vying for their attention. In this area alone, there’s a stiff competition among websites.

Your goal is to have a page title that will stand out from the rest. Also, you need to provide a meta description that will help users know contents of the web page. Without a clear page title and meta description, people will not even click your website. So, you gotta be inviting!

For page titles, here are the things to do:

• You only have around 60 characters for the title. Providing more than that will just end up being cut out by an ellipsis. So, there is no need to add your brand or domain name to the title. Usually, Google will provide the URL below the page title. Adding a domain name will just eat up the space. If people can recognize, your brand easily, you might as well put it up on the title. If you think that there’s a strong brand recall, then go ahead and add it.
• Add important keywords to the title – If you add keywords, this will signal search engines like Google that a page is about this keyword. You are aiming for this keyword on your page. Remember to not add too much though! Keyword stuffing is a bad habit. Too much of anything is generally not good.
• Keep it short and simple – Like I said earlier, you only have around 60 characters. If you exceed, Google will not fully display the title in the search results. So, do not make title excruciatingly long.
• Choose your adjectives carefully – The right words will make your titles interesting for the audience. Moreover, when you can, add numbers to the page titles. Numbers – like 1, 3, 5, and so on – make the wandering eyes stop. If you have it in the title, people will surely stop at your page title.

For meta descriptions, remember to:

• Make your own – As much as possible, do not rely on the auto-generated meta descriptions. Yes, there will be one provided for you when you are writing your post. However, it is best to use your own words to appeal to your audience. Give them a brief overview of the page.
• Add certain keywords – People search because they are looking for something. Once you add that keywords in the meta description, they will have a “light bulb” moment. This what I am looking for!
• Remember, the meta description is your chance to advertise your website. Convince people to choose your page over the other pages in the same SERP. Thus, you have to make it as descriptive as you can. Utilize the ideal length of 160 characters well.

Next? Content Keywords and Content Formatting