*Exhales*. Let's remove the guesswork. Become the most knowledgeable person in the room about Google ranking factors. Impress your friends and colleagues with these untold tips about Google ranking factors.
The hysteria of SEO
In the world of SEO strategy, Google ranking factors are a sea of mystery to many. So why is there so much fuss about it? That’s what we are here to find out.
In SEO (search engine optimisation), rank (or ranking, position) refers to where a website that is ranked within search engine result listings.
With that basic understanding, we can proceed to the good stuff.
You’ve come to the right place if you are looking for expertise in SEO strategy. The things you uncover in this post will hopefully assist with your understanding. Stats suggest that less than 2% of people in the world are aware of the information that follows.
Current assumptions
Close you eyes and imagine you are the king of all things SEO strategy. What words do you connect to Google ranking factors?
Meta Tags, Adwords, Keyword Density, Titles?
Remember that you are not an expert yet and that is why you are reading.
Pull on a blanket and continue on.
Let’s start at the most logical place.
No downtime
This may seem obvious, but many businesses do not have correct processes in place to ensure they avoid downtime.
What are we talking about? You know, you try to go to your company website only to discover that it has magically disappeared. And the panic sets in. Soon enough, the site is down long enough that Google will penalise your ranking in their search results. They have no desire to send their users to blank pages. Then it’s back to the drawing board to begin your SEO work from the start all over again to win back that credibility.
Downtime can happen to the unprepared business. Causes can be as simple as not paying your bill for your hosting service. Or perhaps someone forgot to renew the domain name. Worst case, your site has been hacked because it lacked proper maintenance.
All the above can cause the unsuspecting business to encounter the nightmare scenario of online invisibility - with devastating after affects of Google no longer ranking your site as high quality, sending you less traffic, less customers.
Frequency of updates
Another bug bear of Google are sites that fail to add new content. Google loves to send its users to fresh content. This sends the search engine a signal that it is up to date.
It also tells Google that your site is being actively maintained. Google will gradually lower your ranking if the site does not change after a period of time. It may even consider it abandoned and remove it altogether.
Making regular updates to you website, even just maintenance updates, shows Google that this site is being valued. And they will value your website in return.
Lifespan of the website.
Many digital web agencies and online marketing firms will make promises of page one rankings as soon as the website goes live. This is a sales pitch, and indeed a fallacy.
The unpopular and inconvenient truth is that getting rated highly in Google for a new website takes time. You cannot expect to launch the site and be bombarded with traffic from day dot as Google sends hoards of users to your website. Anyone who tells you anything like this is being dishonest.
What you can do, is have a powerful offsite campaign that sends users to your new website without needing to go through the search engines. For example, a strong social media campaign that promotes your website, or an email marketing strategy that targets the correct demographic.
The only way to hit the top of the rankings from day one (or even day 30) is to pay for targeted keyword listings using Adwords. Often, a digital marketing agency will use part of their fee to deliver this for the first month to try to prove to you that they succeeded in their promise of page one rankings. Don’t be fooled. You are paying for it. And it will disappear from page one as soon as you cease paying.
Age of domain name
Domain names that are older will often perform better in Google and get ranked higher, faster. So keep this in mind when considering your domain name as it may be better off purchasing an older one at a greater cost, rather than an unused available one on the cheap.
And that wraps up our list. Put all these points together and you have a solid foundation. And this is a great start to forming your own opinion. You’ve levelled up yet again.
Be prepared
That brings our main points about Google ranking factors to an end. We now know a lot more about Google ranking factors than when we started.
If you remember the key points, you will no longer need to hide when conversations about Google ranking factors arise.
For now, this is a great starting point for you. There are likely to be more questions than answers that arise as Google changes its ranking factors in the near future.
Now go make yourself a cup of tea. Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.
And be sure to check out our other articles that relate to SEO strategy.
