Google has completely revamped its SEO Starter Guide to show you five ways to create focused web pages that inspire trust and a positive user experience.
1. Topic-rich links
What readers will benefit from is a hands-on approach to web content. A recent Google antitrust case revealed that Google's algorithm, known as Navboost, has a significant impact on rankings due to user interactions. A patent that appears to be about Navboost describes how user interactions create a document-level score that helps sites rank better. This means that creating documentation that encourages positive user interaction signals can help your site rank better.
Older versions of the document had internal sentence-level links to other web pages, but they were not always semantically related in context, and anchors that adequately described the web page they linked to No text was used.
Below is an example of how the link to the site map description web page has been improved.
In older versions, the entire following sentence was linked to the description.
“Learn more about how to create and submit a sitemap.”
The new version links to the same page like this (linked word red):
“If you're willing to take on a bit of a technical challenge, you can also: Submit sitemap—This is a file that contains all the URLs of interest on your site. ”
Topic-rich internal links are a convenient way to create an internal link to another web page that is useful to your readers because the context of the words surrounding the link matches the topic of the web page you are linking to. It seems to make more sense to the user than linking to another her web page with no context.
2. Well-organized page structure
The most obvious change is that the Starter Guide is much shorter than previous versions. The original web page contained approximately 8,639 words. The updated document contains approximately 4,058 words. The new version of the SEO Starter Guide is 53% smaller than the original.
In addition, the original contained 92 heading elements from H1 to H5. The updated document contains 27 heading elements, numbered H1 through H3.
What's interesting is that while the Starter Guide has shrunk by 53%, the use of heading elements has decreased by 71%. This means that if heading usage had remained the same, the updated document would have had a relatively similar percentage of headings (53%), but it did not remain the same.
The actual percentage change is 71% less, the absolute difference is 18%, but the relative difference, the most important measure, is almost twice that. The relative differences in headline usage show that Google has reduced headline usage by 34% in the new version.
These changes have the effect of making all parts flow logically into each other and giving consistency to the entire document.
3. Topic-focused
The reason why the revised SEO Starter Guide uses fewer headings is because it no longer covers sub-subtopics in detail. The old version used 31 H4 heading elements and 12 H5 heading elements.
As a result of the new web page structure, the updated version focuses more on topics and provides the information you absolutely need, while allowing you to follow contextually relevant links to view more information on separate web pages. Options are provided to the reader.
The short format makes it easier for readers to understand the entire topic as one focused document.
The number of topics covered on the new web page is approximately the same as the old web page (new = 11 topics/old = 12 topics). The main difference is the emphasis on topics.
The main topics of the new web page are:
[H2] How does Google Search work? [H2] How long until I see impact in search results? [H2] Help Google find your content [H2] Organize your site [H2] Make your site interesting and useful [H2] Influence how your site looks in Google Search [H2] Add images to your site, and optimize them [H2] Optimize your videos [H2] Promote your website [H2] Things we believe you shouldn't focus on [H2] Next steps
Key topics from previous web page versions include:
[H2] Who is this guide for? [H2] Getting started [H2] Help Google find your content [H2] Tell Google which pages you don't want crawled [H2] Help Google (and users) understand your content [H2] Manage your appearance in Google Search results [H2] Organize your site hierarchy [H2] Optimize your content [H2] Optimize your images [H2] Make your site mobile-friendly [H2] Promote your website [H2] Analyze your search performance and user behavior
Only five topics were carried over into the new Starter Guide.
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Help Google find your content
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Organize your site
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Make your site interesting and useful (subtopic in old version)
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Avoid distracting advertisements (subtopic in old version)
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Promote your website
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Below are the major topics that were discarded.
[H2] Who is this guide for? [H2] Getting started [H2] Tell Google which pages you don't want crawled [H2] Help Google (and users) understand your content [H2] Manage your appearance in Google Search results [H2] Optimize your content [H2] Optimize your images [H2] Make your site mobile-friendly [H2] Analyze your search performance and user behavior [H2] Additional Resources
4. Simplicity can be better than comprehensive
The context of reading articles on mobile devices has completely changed the way content is consumed. Content is consumed on a need-to-know basis. Before mobile, looking something up on the internet meant getting up and walking to a nearby desktop computer or laptop. Nowadays, any information you need, no matter how trivial, is just a few clicks away, but you don't necessarily need a comprehensive article.
Aside from the convenience of accessing content anytime and anywhere, it is inconvenient to have to scroll more than 100 times to read a long article.
The new web page is a compromise between providing a web page that is comprehensive without being unrealistically long, yet on-topic.
5. Similar image elements
Finally, the new web page images share similar colors and design. Older versions had very different colors: yellow, bright red, and some with photos. Many of the images felt as if they were players from different teams, like teammates wearing different uniforms.
Even if you're using stock images, choosing images from the same artist can give your web pages a cohesive look.
New web pages use colors similar to images, making the entire web page more focused and professional, which in turn inspires trust.
Take-out
There are probably other important points, but the ones that stand out to me are:
1. Topic-rich links
It allows for a concise reading experience and provides meaningful links for the reader.
2. Well-organized page structure
The order of topics allows you to progress logically from one topic to the next, like the doors to the next room opening one after the other in a linear fashion, making the entire document easier to understand as a whole.
3. Stay focused on the topic
Continuing off-topic is distracting. Sticking to the topic can improve your reading experience and deepen your understanding of the topic as a whole.
4. Simplicity can be better than comprehensive
Too much information can be confusing, especially if a particular topic contains more information than necessary.
5. Similar image elements
Paying attention to details such as images and graphics within your web pages will result in a professional presentation that promotes trust. Even when using stock images, maintaining the same artist's portfolio forces visual similarity.
Featured image by Shutterstock/Kues
