Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website content so that search engines like Google will find it easily and understand what your content is about. This is important as Google will not rank web pages highly in the search results if it doesn’t clearly understand what they are about.
It should be your aim to rank all of your content high in the Google search results. Ranking high in Google’s search results will help you receive a lot more organic Google traffic. You want the most targeted traffic to your website content that you can get and Google traffic is the best.
Google is a Machine
Google is a machine just like your computer at home. It is very sophisticated, but it does not have the thinking capacity of a human being. What this means is that you must provide Google with all of the help that you can to understand what your content is about.
When the Googlebot checks your web page, it uses a set of rules to determine the nature of your website content. You need to bear in mind that there are already billions of web pages on the Internet and every day millions more arrive.
Google’s aim is to identify all of the content on the Internet and catalog it. This is called indexing. If your content is not indexed in Google then it will never rank in their search results. Once Google indexes a page of content on your website it will apply its algorithm (computer program) to it so that it can rank how useful your content is.
So it is in your best interest to optimize your website content so that Google will understand it and rank it accordingly. The Googlebot will crawl all over your webpage looking for specific things such as the title of the page, the description and the body content. All these things should provide clues as to the nature of the content.
Google and Page Authority
Google provides a rank for all webpages based on their authority. There are several factors used to determine the authority of a page. One of the most important things is the quality of the content on the web page. If the content is short and there are only a few words on the page, then this content will receive a low score.
The domain of the website where the content is hosted is another important factor. Google assigns authority to every domain name. A domain owned by a reputable news service such as CNN or the BBC will have extremely high authority with Google. This is because it really trusts these organizations to provide high quality information.
A brand new domain will have no authority. Google doesn’t know anything about this domain and will not trust it fully. Here is a summary of the most important authority factors that Google will look for on your website:
- The age of the domain
- The amount of content on that domain
- The number of links to the domain from other websites
- Whether the domain has a lot of duplicated content
If the BBC creates a new piece of content Google will instantly trust it and rank it high in the search results. The same goes for CNN, Wikipedia and other websites that it really trusts. Take heart though, this doesn’t mean that you cannot rank your webpages for related keywords in your niche.
To rank your website content highly, provide the highest quality content that is relevant to your audience and share the content on your website everywhere that you can. Optimize your content so that the Googlebot knows what it is about. Keep adding lots of unique content to your website on a regular basis. Then repeat!
Have questions about Search Engine Optimization? Feel free to reach out to the team at Valorous Circle – we would be happy to assist you!
This Valorous Circle blog post on keyword research contains licensed content from a third-party source.
