What is SEO internal measures? Easy-to-understand explanation along the contents of Google’s starter guide!

Internal measures in SEO refer to measures to maintain the inside of the website, such as site structure, internal link settings, and page speed improvement.

Various articles and books explain internal measures, but in fact Google itself provides a detailed manual.

Google is the number one search engine in Japan for both PCs and smartphones. Therefore, it can be said that “SEO measures = Google measures”.

Google always remembers the user-first attitude. Therefore, it can be said that SEO measures are not “thinking about countermeasures against Google” but aiming for “the most ideal site for users that Google wants”.

In order to succeed in SEO measures, it is a shortcut to follow the “Search Engine Starter Guide” provided by Google rather than evenly implementing measures that are overflowing in the streets.

This time, based on the contents of Google’s “Search Engine Starter Guide”, we will explain the minimum internal measures that should be taken. In addition, we will introduce free SEO tools that can be used immediately, so please refer to them.

Table of Contents

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an abbreviation of “search engine optimization”, and it means to increase the evaluation of the web page in the search engine and to be displayed at the top. In this article, we will introduce the steps of SEO measures in detail.

Google is the number one search engine in Japan for both PCs and smartphones. Therefore, it can be said that “SEO measures = Google measures”.

There is a lot of information about SEO measures on the Internet, but companies that have actually succeeded in SEO measures are not doing all SEO measures evenly, but starting with the highest priority. Masu.

If you are doing SEO for the first time, you should definitely check out the “Search Engine Starter Guide” provided by Google .

Prioritize efficient SEO measures

The “Search Engine Starter Guide” provided by Google was originally created for internal use, but for those who are unfamiliar with SEO and those who are thinking of building a site that is friendly to both users and search engines. It was decided to open to the public from the idea that it would be helpful for

A long time ago, speaking of SEO measures, it was “a technique to outsmart Google’s algorithm and raise the search ranking”, but in modern times, such SEO measures are called “black hat SEO”, and not only are they not evaluated at all, but they are also penalized. may also be subject to

Is the current Google search algorithm useful for users of web page content? evaluated according to the criteria .

The Search Engine Starter Guide can be said to be a guidebook for creating web pages that are valuable to both Google and users.

Now let’s take a look at SEO step by step. First of all, it is about the setting of “page title” and “description meta tag” which can be said to be the basis of SEO.

Here’s what the search engine looks like:

page title

The page title is an easy-to-understand description of the content contained on the page. Place the page title by adding a title tag inside the head tag in the HTML document. When your site appears on Google’s search results page, the page title is usually displayed on the top line.

Here are some points to keep in mind when giving titles:

1. Appropriately describe the content of the page
   ・Do not use titles unrelated to the content of the page
   ・Do not use default titles such as “Untitled” or “Page 1” or obscure titles
2. Set a unique title for each page
   Don’t use the same title on most or all pages of your site
3. Set a concise and descriptive title
   ・Do not use extremely long titles that do not benefit users
   ・Do not stuff unnecessary keywords into the title tag

The title is the first point of contact with your website for both Google and users, so try to make it easy to understand what your content is about. If your title is too long, it will only show up halfway on the search results page, so keep it short and descriptive.

description meta tag

The description meta tag tells Google and other search engines what your page is about. Place the description meta tag between the head tags of your HTML document.

It can be a sentence or two longer than the title, or even a short paragraph. The description meta tag, like the page title, is very important because it helps Google and users understand what the page is about .

Also, the description meta tag is used by Google as a “spenit”. A spelling is a short summary of a web page that appears as part of search engine results. Before users access a web page, they judge the content of the web site from the title and summary text displayed in the search results.

The points when setting the description meta tag are as follows.

1. Aggregate the content of the page accurately
   ・Do not write description meta tags that are not related to the content of the page
   ・Do not use vague sentences that do not convey the content of the site, such as “This is a web page” or “Page about flowers” ​​・Only
   keywords Don’t fill it with
   ・Don’t copy and paste all the contents of the page into the description meta tag
2. Set a unique description meta tag for each page
   ・Do not make the content of the description meta tag for each page the same

Google offers a free site analysis tool that allows you to check the search performance of your website with numerical data and graphs. That’s Google Search Console.

In STEP2, I will explain the site structure. The key to improving the site structure is “clear URL” and “clear navigation structure” .

Improve URL

A URL is like an address attached to an individual page on the Internet. It is important to keep your website URL as simple as possible.

The points when setting the URL are as follows.

1. Use words related to the content in the URL
   ・Do not use excessively long URLs that include unnecessary parameters or session IDs
   ・Do not use featureless URLs such as “page1.html” that cannot identify the page
   ・“blume-gift” Don’t overuse keywords like “-blume-gift-blume-gift.htm”
2. Create a simple directory structure
   ・Do not make subdirectories deep hierarchical structures such as “…/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/page.html”・Do not use directory
   names unrelated to the contents

   Structure is the hierarchical structure of your site. A simple directory structure makes it easier for users to find the information they are looking for on your site. Also, a website with a clean directory structure is easier for Google to understand.

3. One URL for one page
   ・Do not access the same content from subdomains and root directories
   *: “domain.com/page.htm” and “sub.domain.com/page.htm”
   ・Links within the site So, don’t mix URLs with and without www.
   Don’t use unnecessary capital letters in URLs

Ideally, you should be able to quickly tell what the content of the page is just by looking at the URL. Also, don’t forget that the URL will also show up in search engine results. Like titles and spellings, they help users understand what your website is about.

Improved navigation structure

“Navigation” serves as a guide for the user to reach the desired page, and includes the display of menus, search screens, page numbers, etc. on web pages.

It also helps search engines understand what content is considered important by website owners.

The navigation structure, like the directory structure, should not be overly complicated and should be easy to understand for both users and Google .

Here are some points to consider when setting up your navigation structure:

1. Create a natural hierarchical structure
   Don’t create intertwined navigation on every page with links to every other page in the site Don’t break up
   content into too many pieces
2. Create navigation with text as much as possible
   Avoid creating navigation with drop-down menus, images, and animations only

By making navigation as text as possible, you make your site easier for search engines to crawl and understand. Users also prefer text links over image and animation-only navigation.

Navigation is not only about making it easy to find the desired page, but it is also important that users can operate without hesitation when they want to return to the previous page . In such a case, you can use what is called a “breadcrumb list”.

Breadcrumbs are horizontal rows of pages, such as “Top Page > Product List > Drinks”. It got its name because Hansel and Gretel dropped crumbs along the way.

Breadcrumbs allow users to easily return to the previous page.

Google appreciates websites that provide valuable information to users. Since “ information = website content”, providing content that matches user needs is the most important part of SEO measures.

Also, users who find good content may share the URL of the content and spread it to others. The number of spontaneous reviews like this is also a point that Google evaluates the website.

When creating content, think about what keywords users will use to find your website.

For example, a user trying to learn about marketing might search for the keyword “marketing basics.” On the other hand, a user who wants to learn about a particular marketing method will search for something like “content marketing how to”. Even when searching for information about the same “marketing,” users use different keywords.

Google explains that “creating content with this diversity in search behavior in mind (using sentences that effectively mix keywords) will yield good results.” It is considered important to include appropriate keywords while creating easy-to-understand content for users.

Here are some tips for creating content:

Create quality content

“Quality content” is content that is valuable to users and created from the user’s point of view. Here are some tips for creating quality content:

• Write easy-to-read articles
• Organize content by topic
• Create unique and fresh content
• Create content for users

Set proper anchor text

Anchor text is the linked text, which is enclosed between the anchor tags. It has the advantage that the information of the linked site is easier to convey than pasting the URL directly. Here are some things to keep in mind when setting anchor text:

1. Use descriptive text
   ・Avoid simple anchor text such as “page”, “article”, “click here”
   ・Do not use text that does not follow the content of the link destination or is irrelevant
   ・Use the page URL as the anchor text do not use as
2. Set concise text
   ・Avoid lengthy sentences or anchor text long enough to become a paragraph
3. Set formatting that makes it immediately recognizable as a link
   Don’t use CSS or text styles that make links look like ordinary text
4. Consideration should be given to the anchor text of internal links.Do
   not stuff a lot of keywords into the anchor text or use redundant sentences just for search engines.Do not
   create links that are not useful for users to navigate within the site.

Pointlessly increasing anchor links as part of SEO measures is counterproductive. Make sure you only post links that are useful to your users.

Optimize image usage

Images pasted on a website are not just for adding color to the page. Every image can have a separate filename and alt attribute (alternative text) , so take advantage of this.

The alt attribute (alternative text) is the text information added to the image. When the image of the web page is not displayed for some reason, the alternative text is displayed instead.

Also, Google’s crawler can not recognize “This is a sunflower” by looking at the sunflower image. By setting the alt text to “sunflower”, Google’s crawlers will know what the image is for the first time.

Here are some tips for optimizing the use of images:

1. Set a concise and descriptive file name and alt text
   If possible, know what the image file is for instead of “image1.jpg”, “pic.gif”, or “1.jpg” should be named something like
   *If your site has thousands of images, you may want to automatically name the image files.
   ・Do not use extremely long file names
   ・Do not cram keywords into the alt attribute or copy and paste all the text in articles and pages
2. Provide alt text when using images as links
   ・Do not write extremely long alt text that may be suspected of violating Google Webmaster Guidelines
   ・Refrain from using only image links for site navigation

Proper use of heading tags

Heading tags are used to indicate the content of the page, such as “heading 1” and “heading 2”. Heading tags help you understand the structure of your website content.

Also, in content such as blogs, the table of contents is a collection of heading tags, so it is important not to make the structure too complicated .

Here are some tips for using heading tags properly:

1. Clarification of content points
   ・Do not surround text with heading tags regardless of page structure
   ・Do not use heading tags where em or strong are more appropriate
   ・Irregular use of heading tag sizes not to
2. Use heading tags sparingly throughout the page
   Don’t overuse heading tags on a page
   Don’t put all the text on a page in a heading tag Don’t
   use heading tags for styling purposes only

Search engines don’t start looking for information on the Internet the moment you enter a keyword. It is a system that collects and classifies information on web pages on the Internet in advance, and searches for data from among them .

The function of crawling web pages one after another and acquiring information is called “crawl”, and Google uses software called web crawler to find open web pages. Crawlers look at web pages and follow links on them, much like a user browses content on the web. It moves from link to link and accumulates data about the web page on Google’s servers.

Dealing with crawlers is one of the important SEO measures. There are the following points to deal with crawlers.

Effectively configure robots.txt

“Google Search Console” is provided by Google so that site owners can specify in detail how to crawl their website. Rather than waiting for the crawler to crawl naturally, it is better to actively “request indexing” or “the crawler could not be recognized for some reason, or a penalty has occurred due to violation of Google’s guidelines. You can check the pages that you are visiting, register the structure of the homepage (sitemap), request a re-crawl, and disable crawling using a file called ‘robots.txt’. Google Search Console is free to use, so I highly recommend taking advantage of it.

1. Use safer methods for sensitive content
   Do not crawl pages that look like search
   results Avoid
   crawling too many auto-generated pages that are identical or have little difference
   Ask again, “Does this page really need to be indexed?”
   URLs generated by proxy services keep it from crawling

Leverage the nofollow attribute on links

By setting the value of the link’s rel attribute to nofollow, you tell Google not to follow this link and pass your site’s page rating to the link destination. To set this, add rel=”nofollow” inside the link’s anchor tag.

A good example of setting nofollow is the comment section of a blog. An unspecified number of people can write comments in the comment section of the blog, and some of them may contain spam links. You can protect your website’s reputation from spam links by setting nofollow.

Perhaps the most significant SEO move since 2010 has been Google’s mobile-focused search algorithm, launched in April 2015. This makes responsive design more important than just keywords and content when it comes to SEO .

Google announced this change in advance in February 2015. At that time, we also published a page called “Mobile Girlfriend Friendliness Test” so that webmasters can check in advance whether their sites are mobile-friendly.

There are two key points for mobile SEO:

1. Notify Google of mobile sites
   With the spread of smartphones, the number of website accesses from mobile phones has increased dramatically, but there are cases where websites cannot properly respond to access from devices other than computers.

   If Googlebot can’t access your webpage from your mobile phone, it won’t index your mobile site.

   First, make sure your mobile site is indexed.

2. Redirect mobile users appropriately Redirect
   desktop users to the desktop URL when they access the mobile site, and redirect mobile users to the mobile URL when they access the desktop site. Not only does it make your website easier for users to navigate, but Google also notices that there are desktop and mobile versions of your webpage.

Once you have created a website that is attractive to both users and Google, it’s time to promote your website.

Here are some ways to promote your website:

1. Correctly understand and utilize social media services
   ・Introduce only content that users are interested in, instead of trying to advertise all the details of newly created
   content Do not participate in programs that artificially manipulate you to appear higher
2. Participate in relevant communities
    Don’t randomly ask sites with related topics to link to your site
   Don’t buy links from other sites to increase your PageRankTM

When promoting a website, it is important to convey “what users want to see/know” rather than “what the company wants to convey” . If you send out content with a strong advertising feeling in quick succession, users will leave.

Also, the website needs to be constantly improved while analyzing. You can use a free tool called Google Analytics to analyze your website.

Doing your own SEO with a keyword research tool can cost anywhere from $100 to $500 a month. If you hire a consultant, it will cost between $75-150 per hour, and up to $10,000 per month if you hire a full-service marketing agency. Small businesses generally don’t spend as much on SEO as large companies.

SEO costs are either the cost of natural (organic) search strategies or the cost of paid Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services such as Google AdWords . The cost of the tools you use, as well as the cost of the consultants and marketing agencies you hire to optimize your web content, can vary greatly depending on the type of service you use.

$10,000 seems like a lot of money. In fact, 40% of businesses now spend less than $1,000 a month on SEO.

Google appreciates “websites that are valuable to users”. Therefore, we may impose penalties for malicious SEO measures that do not benefit users.

One of the reasons you get penalized is because your content and links are of poor quality . Specifically, it is a mistaken SEO measure such as “sprinkling keywords meaninglessly in content” and “increasing external links to famous sites to make them look related”.

Penalties include “significantly lowered search engine display ranking” and “removed from Google’s index” .

Even if you receive a penalty, you can fix the problem areas and submit a re-review request, but if the website you have worked hard to build is lowered in ranking or deleted from the index, it will be useless. .

It is important to follow Google’s guidelines and create a website from a user-first perspective.

This time, I explained the procedure for SEO measures based on the contents of the “Search Engine Starter Guide” provided by Google.

Google’s attitude of evaluating user-first websites will not change in the future. However, SEO measures change with the flow of the times, so it is necessary to collect the latest information .