SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your website and online presence to improve your rankings on search engines. Considering that almost all of people’s research for buying a new product or service starts online, it’s no wonder that everyone wants to be ranked well. But ranking high on Google and other search engines is easier said than done. If everyone knew how to do it, then everyone would rank first – which is, of course, an impossibility. Ranks on Google are similar to spots in a parking lot. There are several spaces near the building but only one that is closest to the front door. Handicapped parking spots, of which there are only a few, are sort of like PPC Ads (pay-per-click).
Think about it from Google’s perspective, for a moment. It is in their best interest that you find what you’re looking for, fast, otherwise you won’t be satisfied with their product. And if you’re not satisfied with their product, then you’ll eventually stop using their product. With that in mind, Google wants to make sure that they’re delivering the absolute best result to people using the search engine. That’s where search engine optimization comes in. It’s up to your SEO professionals to do the convincing that your website is the best option (or one of the best) to display at the top of results when people look for something online.
So, how does Google determine that?
Again, if this were an easy answer, everyone would know the exact science to getting their site in first position. Without getting into the exact sciences of it, here are some of the main key things that Google is looking for when deciding to rank your website high, low, or not at all. We remember them as the three R’s (with a few bonuses thrown in):Â
This is the king when it comes to getting your website ranked. Relevance is basically a series of signals on your website that tell Google and other search engines what your website is about. You can’t expect to have your restaurant ranked when someone searches for “spiders” (unless deep fried spiders are on your lunch menu – yum) because spiders have nothing to do with your restaurant. A good search engine optimizer or copywriter is a master at sending these signals to Google. When someone searches for “lunch near me” for example, then Google may see your website as a relevant result. You might be thinking ‘there must be more to it,’ and you’d be right. How does Google choose one website over another if both are reasonably relevant? While there are lots of specific drilldowns on relevance measures, a specific example is thoroughness. Let’s say for example that you are actually researching spiders – perhaps for a school project or report. Do you think that Google will give you a result that is only 300 words long with no pictures of spiders, or do you think they’ll give you a result that is 10,000 words about spiders, complete with videos, high quality imagery, citations, and links to learn more?
And yes, there’s even more to it. Let’s assume that two identical websites about spiders are on the world wide web – how does Google determine which one to rank first? Google looks at other ranking signals beyond relevancy to further determine ranking order.
So, your website is as relevant as can be. But what if no other websites are linking to it? What if nobody is talking about your website on social media? What if your website is brand new?
Google and other search engines will value the reputation and popularity of a website and use them as signals for how a site should be ranked. The older the domain name, which is what you type into your web browser to reach a site (for example, LovelyPixels.com), the more reputation a site has. The more domains and links coming into a website, the better reputation it has – for someone to link to you, you must be a valuable resource. The more sites that see you as a value resource, the more trust Google and other engines put into you. Google is also inclined to favor popular websites – those being discussed on various social media platforms – over ones that are not. As a final example, even reviews are weighed in a website’s rank. If your company has poor reviews on Google then it is in Google’s best interest to show a competitor over you (remember earlier how we discussed Google’s vested interest in you enjoying and continuing to use their service).
Google deploys something called spiders (yes, we’re talking about spiders again) that ‘crawl’ websites looking for content and changes in content. The content gets recorded or ‘indexed’ so that Google knows what your site is about. It uses this information to determine the relevance of your site to a person’s search query (what they type into the search engine). It costs server / computer resources to deploy these spider bots, so in order to cut down on resources, every time a google spider bot revisits a website, it looks for differences in content. If a spider sees that there is new content, it makes a note to visit your site more often. If a spider sees no new content, it makes a note to visit your site less often. When determining how to rank sites, Google takes into account how often the spider crawls your website, which is known as ‘crawl rate.’ Google values the most recent and up-to-date content over aged content, hence why crawl rate should be important to you (and therefore, why you should strive to keep adding to your website regularly through blogs, news, case studies, testimonials, articles, etc).
If you’re still reading at this point, you deserve a couple of bonus ranking signals. Sorry, but they don’t start with R’s.
There are also a number of ranking factors that are more difficult for you to have a positive affect on, such as your business’ physical location. This can be anywhere from a very important ranking factor to a not-so-important ranking factor. If, for example, you own a pizza business, then your physical location is super important. Someone sitting in New York City looking for pizza isn’t going to your Shepherdstown, WV pizza restaurant for lunch, so there’s no reason for Google to show you – it simply wouldn’t make sense. The same goes for other location based products and services, like real estate, grocery stores and hairstylists. An example on the opposite end of the spectrum would be searches for “travel.” While results for this could be local (travel agencies), you’re likely to get one-stop travel sites that operate on a national/global level as search results versus a local agency or destination. There are plenty of examples that are somewhere between the two – like searches for “shoes” or “jewelry” which could signal someone wanting to buy online or shop at a local outlet.
Another important ranking factor that is relatively new to Google’s ranking scheme is the user’s intent. If someone searches for “graphic design,” for example, they could be looking to hire a professional graphic designer in their area to design a logo for them. However, they could also be looking for a graphic design job in their area. They could even be just doing general research about the field of graphic design. Determining the intent of a searcher is of utmost importance to Google, and they use a number of signals to determine it (such as recent and past search history). Using the jewelry example above, someone looking for “jewelry near me” obviously has a different buying intent than someone looking for “buy jewelry online,” and the results will be adjusted accordingly (go ahead – try it now). Using the travel example from above, someone searching for “travel to Paris” obviously will get different search results than another person searching for “travel to Rome.”
Why does this concern you, as the business / website owner?
It’s your job (and the job of your search engine optimization professional) to get into the minds of your potential customers so that your website delivers to their intents.
How important is being in the first 10 positions?
Generally, not too many people will continue past the first 10 results on Google – so you can expect your clickthrough rates to go way down beyond that. In the past, results of pages on Google and other search engines were known as SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages. With the recent changes to page removal on Google results (some devices no longer show pages at the bottom of results, and instead offer to ‘load more’), there may be a slight increase in clicks beyond the first 10 results, but only time will tell.
You can think of SEO as a marathon (compared to a sprint) or a lifestyle (compared to a diet). There’s a lot of work in the beginning that pays dividends for years to come.
How do search engine optimization professionals know all this junk?
While there are a number of great resources online where anyone can learn about SEO, much of an SEO professional’s knowledge is gained through experience and experimentation (and yes, error). How does one experiment with SEO, you ask? All you need to do is try changing something on your website and then seeing how it affects your keyword ranks. Go to Google, search for a keyword (like ‘restaurant Martinsburg WV’), keep track of how well you rank, and then check your rank again a few days after you work on your website. If you’re looking to do your own experimentation and just want help keeping an eye on your keyword ranks, LovelyPixels has a highly affordable monthly reporting dashboard that you can log into any time to check your keyword ranks, website traffic, and more. It even easily connects to over 30 of your favorite web applications, like Facebook, Google Ads, and CallRail call tracking. Learn more about LovelyAnalytics here.
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The professionals at LovelyPixels provide search engine optimization for businesses all over the world, but we concentrate primarily on bolstering businesses in Martinsburg, Hagerstown, Winchester, Shepherdstown, Charles Town, Greencastle, Frederick, Berkeley Springs, Harpers Ferry, Morgantown, and all through the State of West Virginia!
