Your immediate SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plans probably consist of enhancing your online presence, especially on Google, the world’s most popular search engine. At first glance, you may think that landing on the Google top 10 for a popular keyword is easy. After all, other companies have done it. And you have lots of great content to share.
Before assuming anything about Google, that billion dollar powerhouse, make sure you understand the most important factors in getting a high ranking. Google takes search engine results very seriously because this is the company’s business. Therefore, don’t conclude that it’s easy to earn a high ranking just because you have quality and quantity to offer.
Some of the other Google ranking factors include:
- The age of the domain (longevity equals trust)
- Domain hosting (the quality of your domain hosting company)
- Dedicated or virtual servers (dedicated ranks higher, as virtual servers may be associated with SPAM)
- Contact information (trustworthy sites always have full contact information)
- Proper linking (clean sites with proper inner page linking, plus an easy sitemap)
- URL structure (URLs should be clean and easy to read, not full of garble)
- Quality of inbound and outbound links (100% relevancy and quality)
These are just some of the overlooked factors that many clients and SEO firms neglect when they try to improve their search rankings. Of course, you probably already know two of the most important factors in SEO: selecting appropriate keywords and quality/quantity content. However, are you also aware that your web pages have to be properly optimized in addition to articles—and each page must be optimized according to its unique content? You know that having a proper balance of quality and quantity is important, but are you truly writing articles for human beings? Google Robots are not impressed with artificial language or keyword stuffed content.
Another important factor is that of the bounce rate, and this is credit that not too many people are willing to give Google. Google actually tracks how long visitors (sent from keyword strings) are staying at your site. This means that all those visitors who find your site and then immediately leave (usually because of keyword irrelevancy) are counting against you!
In other words, pay attention to the quality of your site—in all respects. Don’t neglect the little things because Google has nothing better to do than focus in on all the minute details! Now plan your SEO strategy from a Google-centric point of view.