How to make Google Love your website: Advice from a website evaluator

I work for Leapforce evaluating webpages and search engine results. Google uses the data from evaluators like me to rate webpage quality.  The quality of your website affects where it shows up in the search engine results, so it affects the traffic to your site. While doing my job I find the same mistakes over and over on the websites I visit.  Here is some advice for website creators.

INCLUDE YOUR ADDRESS

If your website is for a business with a physical location that you want people to visit you must include your full address.  I’m continually amazed at how many websites just say things like “…on North High Street” or “…in the Garment District” and nothing else.  Some websites have the address but it’s not prominently displayed, they make the user search for it.  You should never make important information like that hard to find.  When someone searches for your site they want quick easy answers to their questions. If you want someone who is not familiar with your neighborhood to visit they need to know your full address.  The addition of a map and directions will give your website a better ranking in Google and you will also be rewarded with more visitors to your business.

INCLUDE INFORMATION ABOUT WHO PROVIDES CONTENT

Google wants to know that you have some authority to write what you are writing about.  If you have no information about yourself or the people contributing content to your page Google may become suspicious.  If you want a high ranking in Google you should include a little bio about each of the contributors to the site giving the reader some reason to believe your contributors know what they are writing about.

DON’T GET TOO CREATIVE WITH COLORS AND FONTS

Unless you only want young people to read your site do NOT use black with white font on your website. Worse than that is black background with a gray font.  People older than 30 have a hard time reading it, they won’t bother and will leave your site for another.  I recently saw a site that had a dark reddish brown background with royal blue font, it was like trying to read while on LSD.  If you want people to read and spend time on your site it should be easy on the eyes.  The best combinations are like what humans are used to reading – a light background with a dark font.  You can play with colors but keep it a dark font on light background and your readers will be happy.

USE GOOD GRAMMAR AND CHECK YOUR SPELLING

Yes, Google cares about grammar and spelling.  If your site is poorly written, Google assumes that the content on the site isn’t trustworthy, that the content was just thrown on the page as a filler and the only purpose of the site is to have a place for ads.  If you aren’t a good writer find an editor to check your work before you post it.

CONCLUSION

Google is looking for websites that provide helpful, trustworthy information to people; that information should also be easy to find and read.  The better your website is at meeting these criterial the higher your ranking in Google will be.  I hope this helps you make better decisions about how to structure your website.