Search Engine Optimisation

What Google wants and how it ranks your site

In the recent past, you could easily score top positions on Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) by literally pumping keywords into your content. That’s how SEO experts were doing it left, right and centre.

But, over the past few years search engines, especially Google, have been improving their search algorithms to become better and better at spotting empty content that has no value beyond being chock full of search keywords. That era of SEO is over and we’re better off for it.

While the days of manual link-building schemes and keyword stuffing are over, your search engine rankings can be boosted by utilizing several tools that will optimize your WordPress website for search engines, without abusing the system.

One of the main ways that Google works these days is that it looks at your website and reads the ‘real’ text within your pages. Updates to the algorithm have enabled Google to start serving up content that better matched searchers’ intent – not just their keywords.

The search engine analyses tons of pages for their content. It learns the relationships between the terms and the context they usually appear in, which enables it to also build expectations as to what terms are prone to appear in a specific context. Using RankBrain, Google then picks the results according to these expectations. So, to rank better you do not have to use a few keywords over and over again. You have to build a cloud of associations related to your main topic and deliberately use the words and concepts from this cloud all over your content (the graphic at the top of this page is a representation of a cloud of words).

If you want your website to be found when people enter, for example, ‘high heeled shoes hurt my feet’ into the search field you need to ensure that you include text that includes information about how high heeled shoes hurt feet. Strings of words are important. These days search engines treat pages in terms of “topics” rather than specific keywords.

You want to rank for those common keywords that are specific to your business niche/market place. But — you don’t. The competition is so tense that it is not worth your efforts. The traffic for these words will be small in comparison with the visits you can get from long-tail keywords. This typically means using generic layperson’s terms to describe your products and services as opposed to industry jargon (unless you’re in a very niche business-to-business industry). An example from the medical field would be to use “ear, nose, and throat doctor” instead of “otolaryngologist.” Long-tail keywords are more about users’ intention, which is exactly what search algorithms are about right now.

There’s no magic solution to get you to the top of Google search results, and I would recommend avoiding anyone who says there is. I can’t guarantee that your website will appear in the number one position (apart from when your unique company name is entered)… nobody can.

Google sends bots out to review your website at irregular intervals, so results may not be immediately obvious. When you get a new website on a new domain the whole process takes time – from weeks, to months and even years.

Google incorporates over 200 signals that are used in determining search rankings. Factors like relevance, topicality and reputation are the most important. The results depend on many variables, including:

• what someone enters as a search query
• what competition you have
• whether your competitors have improved their own rankings
• how often your website is updated
• how long your website has been live
• domain name and extension
• whether your website is mobile-friendly (responsive)
• Facebook shares, Google+ 1s, and other social metrics
• mentions of brand name on other news, media and press sites
• quality of links and link sources
• and most importantly, as mentioned above, it depends on the content on your site

Consistent, high-quality content published to your website can increase your rankings in Google, and thus, the traffic to your site which can result in leads for your business.

This isn’t an overnight accomplishment, but even Google wants to know if your business is trustworthy before they reward you with better rankings. Google’s SEO rules are bound to change, but rich, valuable content seems to be the one thing that they’ll never shut out.

Here are a few things that you can do to help your website’s ranking in search results:

• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your product or interest
• Think about the words visitors would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site includes those words
• Increase visitor numbers – the more people who view your site, the more Google regards your website as ‘relevant’

If you find yourself at a crossroads when trying to come up with content ideas, then your best bet is to research what your competitors are doing. You should never steal the content from another site, but you can use the content your competitors create as inspiration for your own content creation process. If you’re looking for help in your content creation, then please let me know. I may be able to help.

WordPress is famous for being well designed for SEO right out of the box and standard search engine optimisation is performed on all websites that I launch. If your site was designed and developed by i4design and hosted on the i4design server, it will be fast, mobile ready and have a concise site structure – also important factors that help improve your search engine rankings.

Apart from the above, to give you the best chance of ranking well on Google you need to perform off-site SEO. This includes all the other things that affect your ranking, such as Google Business and listings in directories. To keep up with competitors that have comparable sites to yours, but are consistently appearing higher in Google’s results, you’ll also need to look at using Google AdWords.

With Google AdWords you have the ability to pay Google for top placement. Your ad will potentially show up at the top of the search results for the keywords you choose. Some keywords are more expensive than others, and Google sets that price partially based on the number of people bidding for that keyword. To put it simply, the more you spend, the more Google will favour your site.

There are always those who claim special knowledge. The reality is, there are no hidden tricks of the trade that will improve your ranking. Listen to the real professionals from the SEO field to understand what to do to succeed in your aspirations.