Among the handful of major search engines on the Internet, Google is indisputably king. It is so popular that people are now using its name to pertain to the act of online searching. Well, who wouldn’t prefer “googling” to visiting the library if there’s information they want to find out about? After all, it’s faster, smarter, and more up to date. That’s exactly what draws people to it.
Google processes over 2,400,000 search queries per minute. That’s roughly 3 times the number of words in the Bible. With a gargantuan following like this, you can’t blame advertisers from all industries for flocking in Google and begging for a spot on the first page. Then again, ranking on Google isn’t something you can for. You have to earn it through hard work.
How Google Ranking Works
Google’s structure may be complex but the principles of its workings are pretty basic. When you want to search for a particular information, all you need to do is to type a keyword related to your search. Then Google will run its system to search for websites that may contain the information you’re searching for. That’s where the first problem emerges. There’s a 99-percent chance they will find more than a couple results. So how do they choose which comes first on the list they will present to you?
They didn’t want to rank websites subjectively or randomly, especially because the first three results pages have unequivocally powerful marketing potential. To eliminate any biases, they created rules that websites should follow to increase their chances of being indexed and ranked. These rules are programed into Google’s algorithms. Now, if you want to rank high on Google, you have to make sure that your website is built according to these rules. That’s where SEO comes in. It’s the practice of using different methods that can help increase a website’s ranking on search engines.
Whether you are a website owner or a digital marketing company that uses white label SEO services, you should be well-versed in how search engines work in order to benefit from it. To give you an overview of what these rules are about, here are some factors that affect a website’s ranking on Google.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
This is the long set of words, letters, and symbols that indicates a website’s address. While all working websites have URLs, not all URLs are acknowledged by Google. Specifically, Google doesn’t rank websites whose URL is difficult to visit or doesn’t tell where Google’s crawlers can and cannot look for basic site information. Simply put, the first step to ranking on Google is to be accessible. Two things successful websites do are adding a robot.txt file and a sitemap that lists all of the website’s pages.
Page Speed
Who would want to stay on a website that takes a few seconds to load? Not only is it frustrating but it’s time-consuming as well. If this is the current state of your website, then you should be worried, not only because you may be losing visitors but Google might actually penalise you for that. The latest algorithms are targeted on websites that have low page loading speed, especially on mobile devices, which leads us to another influential ranking factor.
Mobile-Friendliness
Does your website load properly on smartphones or tablets? If not, don’t be surprised if you cannot find your website in the first couple of search results pages. There are more people browsing the Internet through their mobile devices than there are using their desktops and laptops. If you want your website to be visible and striking to the majority of internet users, then make sure it is mobile-friendly.
Optimised Content
No matter how well-written or well-designed the content of your website is, if it isn’t optimised, it won’t get indexed or ranked. Optimisation is like creating landmarks for Google crawlers to find. Your content has to have all the necessary keywords, particularly the most searched ones to help Google rank your website in the right category. You don’t want your website to rank in a different niche because that would not yield enough traffic.
Content Quality
Another new but powerful ranking factor, high-quality content is the ultimate key to lasting online presence. Providing the people with relevant, accurate, and relatable content will put your website right over the top of the search results in your niche. Gone are the days when you can rank high just by creating as many content as possible. Google is done factoring in quantity. It’s now more concentrated on quality.
Few Details That Matter
Each search result comes out in the form of a title with a description. As trivial as they may seem, these are actually vital components that affect your ranking because they are the first elements Google checks out. Therefore, you should take advantage of it. Use keywords in the title and description, use header tags to show content hierarchy, create a meta description that both entices readers and includes your keyword phrase, and use keyword phrases in image alt tags to show how the images are relevant to the main content.
You can do all these to improve your website’s ranking. Or if you are offering digital marketing services, make sure to keep these tips in mind. However, accomplishing all of these is easier said than done. After all, you’ve just seen six; there are plenty of other things you should do to obtain that ranking you’ve been longing for. If you want to take it up a notch, consider having a white label search engine optimisation provider, such as White Label Club as your partner. They can do the hard work while you concentrate on much more urgent tasks that only you can perform.