Appendix R: Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Table Of Contents
- 3 Parts of Google SEO
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments - Get Your Website On Google
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments - Google In Depth
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments - Creating People First Content
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments - Hiring An SEO
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments - Maintaining Your Site's SEO
- Part 1: SEO Fundaments - Developer's Guide To Search
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Guide To Google Search Ranking
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Byline Dates
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Define A Favicon
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Featured Snippets
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Flexible Sampling Guidance
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Google Discover
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Google Image Best Practices
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Page Experience
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Core Web Vitals
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Interstitials and Dialogs
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Signed Exchanges
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Site Name vs Page Titles
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Site Links
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Structured Data Markup
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Translated Results
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Video SEO
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - A Visual Representation of Google Search
- Part 2: Ranking and Search Appearance - Enabling Web Stories
- Part 3: Google Business Profile Ranking
- Part 3: Google Business Profile Ranking - Establishing Your Business with Google
- Part 3: Google Business Profile Ranking - Google Top Places List
Part 1:
SEO Fundamentals
Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
Google authored guide to SEO.
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Get Your Website On Google
Google automatically crawls the internet to index sites, but you’ll want to make sure it’s been properly indexed. You can check that at
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/get-on-google
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Google In Depth Guide
Google ‘s guide to how SEO works.
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/how-search-works
We go into detail about Google In Depth, here in Appendix D
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Creating People-First Content
Google ‘s guide on how to create content. This documentation prepared by Google tells content creators what Google is looking for in the content they produce.
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
We wrote an article that covers exactly what Google looks for in content, check it out!
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Hiring An SEO
Google ‘s guide on hiring an SEO agency or consultant.
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo
Google created a video with some tips to help.
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Maintaining Your Site's SEO
Google ‘s prepared a documentation guide to maintaining your site’s SEO. It includes things like: duplicate content, resources, robots.txt, sitemaps, site migration and Google site crawling. You can find the documentation here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/get-started
We wrote an article that makes it easy to understand duplicate content and how to handle it. Check out the article.
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Developer's Guide To Search
Google ‘s prepared a documentation guide to that helps developers understand how google views your site’s content. This guide includes suggestions that make it easier for Google to understand your site content. Matching your content to what Google likes to see, makes it more likely that Google will rank it in search results. You can find the documentation here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/get-started-developers
Part 2:
Ranking and Search Appearance
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Overview
The overview is a table of contents for search appearance topics. Go here to view it:
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Guide To Google Search Ranking Systems
In this guide Google describes how it uses automated systems and what these systems look for when determining the most relevant and useful pages to rank. View this guide here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide
We wrote an article to help people understand how Google’s ranking systems work, it’s a quick a 3 minute read, got 3 minutes? Read it now!
Interested in how Google uses AI in search results? Then you’ll want to read our “A Quick Look At How Google Uses AI To Power Search Results” article about it.
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Byline Dates
In this guide Google describes how it uses byline dates to estimate when a web page was published or updated. You’ll often see that Google publishes this information in its search listing results, but not always (as you can see in the illustration below).
View Google’s Byline guide here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/publication-dates
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Define A Favicon To Show In Results
If you add a Favicon to your site, Google will display it alongside your page results listing. Here’s what it looks like:
Read more about adding a Favicon here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/favicon-in-search
Need a quick and easy Favicon? Here’s a free Canva template you can use: Get It Here:
IMAGE [optin page]
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Featured Snippets
Google reverses its regular search result with “snippets” by presenting search result information directly in the result. Snippets don’t require the person searching to click a link in order to obtain the result they’re looking for, at first glance.
Google’s featured snippet documentation includes directions on how to opt out and block snippets. Read about featured snippets here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/featured-snippets
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Flexible Sampling Guidance
In this documentation Google provides guidance for sites that place content behind paywalls. Sites with paywalls restrict access to their content by requiring visitors to optin or pay for access.
This guidance reverses its regular search result with “snippets” by presenting search result information directly in the result. Snippets don’t require the person searching to click a link in order to obtain the result they’re looking for, at first glance.
Google’s featured snippet documentation includes directions on how to opt out and block snippets. Read about featured snippets here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/featured-snippets
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Google Discover
Google Discover vs Google Search
Google Search: a person enters a search term to find information based upon their search query.
Google Discover: instead of providing query based results, Discover displays content based upon a person’s interests. Read about Google Discover here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-discover
To help you quickly understand how to take advantage of Google Discover, read our article: “What Is Google Discover and How To Use It To Your Advantage“.
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Google Image Best Practices
Google Image Search provides an alternative method of search for users looking for visual content. Google’s released new image features that include:
Image Captions: provide a brief description of the image to help a viewer understand it.
Badges: identify the type of image it is, for example: a recipe, video, product or GIF. Read about Google Discover here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images
To help you quickly understand Google’s image features and how to get your content onto Google’s Image search results, read our article: “How To Get Your Content Found In Google Image Search Results“.
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Page Experience
Google’s trying to provide the user the best possible results and looks to reward content that does that, making for a good page experience. You can assess your content page experience by reviewing Google’s core page experience considerations:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-experience
Here are several page experience resources that can help you:
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google Search results
- Search Console’s HTTPS report: (this report is currently in testing)
- Check if a site’s connection is secure
- Avoid intrusive interstitials and dialog
- Chrome Lighthouse (includes mobile usability)
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Core Web Vitals
These are metrics are an important measure of a user’s real world experience with your site pages. The better your site’s core web vitals, the more likely Google will be to rank your content. Read all about it here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Interstitials and Dialogs
These refer to site pop ups and overlays that promote something to the site visitor. Using them makes it more difficult for Google to understand what your site and page content is about.
Age restricted or location restricted businesses use them before granting access to the website. Read all about Interstitials and dialogs here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/avoid-intrusive-interstitials
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Signed Exchanges
These refer to Google’s pre-fetching your content. This helps render content faster because the key resources are already available. Learn all about signed exchanges here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/signed-exchange
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Site Name vs Page Titles
Google displays the name of the site the page came from, THE SITE NAME. Read more about site names here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/site-names
Each page has its own TITLE, which refers to the name of the page. It’s the “title” of the search result that links to the web page. Google looks to the <title> html tag on the page to find your title. You can also identify a site’s title using the <h1> “header” element. You’ll want to make sure each of your web pages has a unique title which makes it distinctive. Learn more about Page Titles here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Site Links
Google doesn’t always display them, particularly of your site structure doesn’t allow them to
Read more about site links here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/sitelinks
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Snippets
Google uses snippets to display a description or summary of the results.They’re created from page content. That causes them to vary. You can learn about them here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet
Google Business Profile Ranking and SEO
Structured Data Markup
Google uses this to more easily understand your page meaning. The reason it makes things easier for Google is that the page data follows a standardized or “structured” format.
Not only does structured data make your page easier for Google to understand, it also makes it easier for your audience.
Read how structured data can help you here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/intro-structured-data
We also break down structured data into a quick and easy to follow format, read our article: “Demystifying Structured Data…How To Get Visitors Bonding With Your Page (while giving Google what it wants at the same time)“.
Translated Results
Google tries to make content written in one language readable to someone in another language when possible. it does this to fill gaps that require translation.
Google allows you to opt out of translations if you desire and also provides the ability to monitor clicks and impressions for translated results in Google Search and on the Google Ad Network. If that’s something you’d like to learn more about, read about it here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/translated-results
Video SEO
Google recognizes that the creation and consumption of video content is growing rapidly and has established a guide to Video SEO best practices, you can review it here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/video
Read our article: “How To Optimize Your Videos For Google Search”
A Visual Representation of Google Search
Google created a visual representation of its search results page
Take a look at it here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/visual-elements-gallery
Enabling Web Stories On Google Search
Web Stories follow the “stories” format where the user swipes from one piece of content to another. Google has created a guide on how to enable them to appear. You can read about it here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/enable-web-stories
If you’re interested in Web Stories short form content creation and getting it to appear on Google Search, check out our article: “How To Get Short Form Content Web Stories To Appear In Google Search”.
Establishing Your Business with Google
Chapter 2: How To Login To Your Listing
Chapter 3: How To Manage Your Listing
Chapter 5: How To Edit Your Listing
Chapter 6: How To Update Your Listing You can also read Google’s documentation here: URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/establish-business-details
Google Top Places List
Google may display your local business (only physical locations qualify) if it’s mentioned in a “top places” online listing, as long as the listing site meets certain criteria. You can opt-out if your location is included and you prefer that it isn’t.
You can also read Google’s documentation here:
URL: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/top-places-list#requirements
You've reached the end of Appendix R
For more details on Google Search and Google In Depth, visit Appendix D
