What The Heck Is SEO Anyway?
That’s a good question – SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the term given to describe an activity
that attempts to improve your website’s search engine rankings when people search for the
words and phrases relevant to the services and products your site provides.
How Do I Get My Site To Appear In A Google Search?
We’re glad you asked. When a user types a query into Google, the search results show links to pages that it considers to be highly likely to answer the question the user types in. Google determines which results are the most relevant using a series of ranking factors that they are always refining.
The good news is that your website has the potential to rank well in Google and other search engines if you know what these ranking factors are and optimize your site accordingly.
How Google Ranks Pages
Many factors come into play when it comes to the sites that Google promotes to the top of their search results. Some of the more important areas to focus on are quality content, links, anchor text, social trust and click through and bounce rate. You can find explanations of all these terms below.
Why Do I Need Quality Content?
One of the most important ranking factors Google looks for is high-quality content on your website. Content, that engages your audience and inspires them to act, will have people naturally linking it. In turn, this shows Google you have a site that is an authority in your niche, and they should pay attention to it.
You see, Google wants to give their visitors the best user experience and provide them with the most interesting, useful and authoritative pages in their search results. This means creating content that people find helpful, because helpful content gets shared on blogs, forums and social media channels, etc. Over time Google and other search engines notice these signals and will start to rank your website higher.
Other on-page factors that help a website’s search engine rankings include adding relevant page title tags, H1 tags, internal links and creating optimized content focusing on specific keywords. Learn more about these SEO terms.
How Do I Get Links & How Do They Help?
Links pointing towards your pages have a great impact on boosting your search engine rankings. Ideally, these links are coming from authoritative, trustworthy sites that are relevant to the content found on your site. Google sees these as high-quality links.
It is also possible to attract low-quality links to your website that could adversely harm your website’s rankings. These links come from ‘poor neighborhoods’ on the internet that are full of sites that Google has deemed low quality. If you find links pointing towards your site from these neighbourhoods, you can ask Google to disavow them and not count them in your backlink profile.
What Is Anchor Text?
Anchor Text Is One Of The Most Important Elements Of A Successful SEO Campaign
Anchor text is the word or phrase used in the link that points towards your website. Ideally, you want the anchor text that is pointed towards your site to contain some of the keywords relevant to the content that appears on your site.
How Google Sees Anchor Text
Google uses anchor text in combination with the content found on your site to understand how authoritative it is. In Google’s eyes, if a lot of high quality, trustworthy sites are sending links to your website, they believe it’s a source of information that they should rank higher in their search results.
How About Those Social Trust
& Social Media Marketing Factors?
Another good question. Both these metrics are important and Goggle are looking for brands to have them.
Social Trust
Social Metrics have become an increasingly important ranking factor. Having a presence for your business on Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram shows Google and other search engines that your business is a legitimate online presence that can be trusted.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the process of creating engaging content that gets shared with people who are interested in your brand on social media platforms. Sharing content on your social media platforms, such as instagram, facebook and twitter, is a good way to build relevant links towards your website and help raise awareness of your brand.
Contact Us Now To Get A Free Consultation
And No Obligation Website Analysis
As Edmonton SEO specialists, we will take the time to review your website and then offer you practical, honest advice
on the best ways to optimize your site for better search engine listings. We take the time to get really to know
your business and together, build a practical, tailored SEO strategy that will get you results.
Don’t wait for your competitor to contact us before you do.
Give your business the exposure it deserves by dominating the rankings in Google.
Our services help drive more customers to your website, products, and services.
Watch as your business grows from a new stream of customer inquiries.
Click Through & Bounce Rate
Google has increasingly given more relevance to click-through and bounce rates as part of their ranking algorithm. They can see how many times your website gets shown in their search engine listings vs. how many times somebody clicks on your site link.
In addition they can track how long someone spends on your site. If a visitors to your site quickly clicks back to Google, it could be that you aren’t offering content that answers the visitors question.
If Google sees a low click thru rate or high bounce rate, they will rank your page lower in their search results.
What Is SEO Conclusion
If you create great content on your site that, is relevant to what your potential customers are looking
for, while also making sure it is optimized for what Google wants to see, you will see a real rise
in rankings. If you combine that approach with back links from high authority
websites, you are well on your way to finding search engine success.
Give us a call today and find out how we can help get you more leads for your website for an
affordable, honest search engine optimization campaign.