INSIGHTS•4 MIN READ
The Real Reason a Site Ranks in Google
Kyle
Published on December 3, 2012
Published on Wealthy Affiliate — a platform for building real online businesses with modern training and AI.
Today I want to discuss something that is in the minds of most people.
But in actuality, ranking in Google has nothing to do with any of this. These are associations that have been made with pages that are ranked in Google. Believe it or not Google is not looking for keywords, they are not looking for any specific keyword density, they don’t care about back-links or any other metric that you think may be getting pages ranked.
There is one thing that Google cares about.
What makes a quality user experience.
Quality content - This should be your immediate focus for SEO. If you can create content that is powerful for a reader, not for some sort of algorithm you are going to be moving in the right direction. Every single change to SEO over the past 3 years has been derived from Google’s single goal. To make their users (the people searching) happy by finding “quality” content.
Help, inform, and engage a reader and you are doing your job when it comes to content.
Page design - Is your site confusing? Is your site easy to navigate? Is it helpful? As you build your site you should be putting yourself in your visitors shoes. If you came to your site as a visitor, would you be happy with the experience. If your answer is no or maybe, you have some work to do. Your site should be helpful and it should be easy to find what you are looking for, if not the reader experience is going to suffer and so are your rankings.
Shameless promotions - Do you like it when people sell stuff to you? Probably not. Nor do people visiting your site. Google doesn’t like promotional content either and will often “red flag” your entire site if your content is riddled with affiliate links and shameless promotions. Your first goal should be to help someone. Solve a problem. Offer quality information. Start a discussion. If you can make your experience an enjoyable one for your visitors, trust will increase and the “selling” aspect will be much more natural.
High relevance - If someone is coming to your site through a keyword, your content should be highly relevant to the subject. Believe it or not, people try to target “keywords” and then totally forget about making the information relevant, information and useful to the target keyword.
If you don’t keep things relevant you can pretty much give up on seeing any ranks within Google (or other search engines for that matter).
Engagement - When you create content, you should have an immediate goal. Get social feedback. If you are creating content that gets comments, causes interest, gets shared within the social sphere or sparks questions, then you are doing a good job. This should be a goal.
If you write interesting stuff, it will get shared and it will have an ongoing dialogue taking place right within your actual content. These are both things Google likes and will lead to much higher rankings.
Take technology, algorithms, processes, and metrics out of the situation and what are you left with?
If you can appeal to that singular point and humanize your online activities, you are going to be much more successful in terms of the impact your content has, the sell-ability of your site, and the ranks you get within the search engines.
Getting ranked in Google.
In order to fully understand how to get ranked, you need to look at Google from a completely different angle. Most people think of rankings as traffic numbers, competition numbers, keywords, words, density...But in actuality, ranking in Google has nothing to do with any of this. These are associations that have been made with pages that are ranked in Google. Believe it or not Google is not looking for keywords, they are not looking for any specific keyword density, they don’t care about back-links or any other metric that you think may be getting pages ranked.
There is one thing that Google cares about.
User EXPERIENCE.
That is right. Google is constantly making all of these shifts...the Google Panda updates...the Google Penguin updates...and the over 500 yearly algorithm updates in attempt to deliver pages with the best user experience.What makes a quality user experience.
Quality content - This should be your immediate focus for SEO. If you can create content that is powerful for a reader, not for some sort of algorithm you are going to be moving in the right direction. Every single change to SEO over the past 3 years has been derived from Google’s single goal. To make their users (the people searching) happy by finding “quality” content.
Help, inform, and engage a reader and you are doing your job when it comes to content.
Page design - Is your site confusing? Is your site easy to navigate? Is it helpful? As you build your site you should be putting yourself in your visitors shoes. If you came to your site as a visitor, would you be happy with the experience. If your answer is no or maybe, you have some work to do. Your site should be helpful and it should be easy to find what you are looking for, if not the reader experience is going to suffer and so are your rankings.
Shameless promotions - Do you like it when people sell stuff to you? Probably not. Nor do people visiting your site. Google doesn’t like promotional content either and will often “red flag” your entire site if your content is riddled with affiliate links and shameless promotions. Your first goal should be to help someone. Solve a problem. Offer quality information. Start a discussion. If you can make your experience an enjoyable one for your visitors, trust will increase and the “selling” aspect will be much more natural.
High relevance - If someone is coming to your site through a keyword, your content should be highly relevant to the subject. Believe it or not, people try to target “keywords” and then totally forget about making the information relevant, information and useful to the target keyword.
If you don’t keep things relevant you can pretty much give up on seeing any ranks within Google (or other search engines for that matter).
Engagement - When you create content, you should have an immediate goal. Get social feedback. If you are creating content that gets comments, causes interest, gets shared within the social sphere or sparks questions, then you are doing a good job. This should be a goal.
If you write interesting stuff, it will get shared and it will have an ongoing dialogue taking place right within your actual content. These are both things Google likes and will lead to much higher rankings.
Take technology, algorithms, processes, and metrics out of the situation and what are you left with?
A reader.
If you can appeal to that singular point and humanize your online activities, you are going to be much more successful in terms of the impact your content has, the sell-ability of your site, and the ranks you get within the search engines.Share this insight
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