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How To Control Your Listing Text in Google’s Search Results

A Google Webmaster Help video from Matt Cutts
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlJiLDn9-38) released on Nov.
10, 2009 got me thinking how the listing text in Google’s search
results can easily be overlooked by some webmasters in their SEO
efforts.

SEO is all about extending the reach of your web site content to
your target market using online search platforms. You can tell
when this has been achieved, and to what degree, by using web
analytics software to monitor referral and visitor data. But
what that data won’t tell you is how your site appears to users
in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Sure, you’re getting
traffic but perhaps you’re missing out on a lot more because
your listing text is weak. You wouldn’t take out a newspaper
advertisement without looking at the final proof first. So don’t
be in the dark over how your site appears to people who use
Google.

Poor page titles, visible copy, and description meta data can
result in a weak listing. Webmasters have a lot of control over
what text is displayed in a SERP, but in the end, Google
reserves the right to modify result snippets if it feels the
original isn’t up to par.

It’s important to remember that this decision by Google is based
on a highly refined algorithm and is ultimately for the benefit
of people searching for your content. That said, I’m willing to
bet most webmasters still prefer to retain control over how
their web site is shown in Google.

By ensuring your on-page content is the best it can be, you’re
greatly increasing the chances Google doesn’t step in and tweak
your listing.

Let’s look at the different elements of an organic Google search
result and how we can control what is shown.

Page Title

The large blue link at the top of the snippet. As Matt points
out in his video, most people know Google can modify the
description snippet in the listings but not everyone is aware
that Google may also change the title. In this case, it is
usually due to a shortcoming with your web page’s title
attribute. If the title is missing, too long or irrelevant,
Google may show something more on-topic to the search query
made.

Here are some tips to ensure Google displays the best possible
title text to a user:

* Always ensure that page titles are unique and not just
copied page to page across the site

* The page title isn’t something you stuff with keywords.
Yes, always include your most important key phrases but
don’t offer a long list of everything your web site is
about. It should be a concise headline that describes the
content on the specific page – personally, I try to use no
more than three different keywords or phrases.

* Page titles over 60 characters in length are likely to get
cut down and manipulated by Google. If the search term(s)
appears in a lengthy title tag, it’s likely that a snippet
of it will be used where the term appears.

Listing Description

Using the same logic as for the title, the description displayed
in a SERP comes from the most relevant area of your web page.
IE. – The area of your text containing the word(s) used in the
Google search query.

The listing snippet is typically generated from your visible
copy on the page or the description meta tag. This is a good
reason to optimize the description meta tag as part of your SEO
campaign. While Google’s algorithm ignores it for purposes of
determining rankings, it can still pull the tag’s content and
display it to its users. A good description meta tag uses proper
grammar and explains the page content in under two or three
sentences. Remember, don’t stuff the description tag with a list
of keywords. That isn’t helpful for users or the search
engines.

If you write focused, quality on-page content for your target
audience and create a helpful description tag, you should have
your Google listing snippet covered.

Cache Version of the Page

Next to the green URL in your Google listing is usually a
“Cached” link. Clicking this will display the version of your
web page that was indexed by the Googlebot when it last crawled
your site. Also included is the crawl date.

Why is this important? Well, if you’ve recently updated your
page title or visible copy and the changes are not reflected in
Google results, it probably means Google hasn’t returned to
check your site’s content for updates.

Common reasons for this include few inbound links or existing
inbound links of poor quality. If Google doesn’t crawl the pages
that link to your site, it stands to reason they won’t visit
your site frequently.

If you find your site isn’t getting crawled enough by Googlebot
or other search engine robots, consider submitting your site to
local business directories or swapping links with other good
quality, relevant web sites. The benefits of inbound links also
go much farther than just increasing crawl frequency – they will
also play a significant part in how well your site ranks.

Now that we know the elements of a typical Google listing and
the factors that determine what is shown, all that’s left is for
you to monitor your site listing for various keyword searches
and make changes when necessary.

Remember: a top Google ranking doesn’t mean anything unless
people actually click on it. Have a look at your competitors’
listings in Google and see how yours compares – which one would
you click on if you did a search for that topic? In my
experience, there is often room for improvement when it comes to
copy writing and content relevancy. In the end, your users and
the search engines will like you more for it.