What We Know Works & What Doesn’t
Transcript from the video:
This is Your Marketing Minute from Forward Push, and today I wanted to talk to you about SEO – Search Engine Optimization.
It is a category and a topic that is filled with plenty of “what ifs” and “it depends.”
There are some things that are absolutely sure that we know Google does not care about when it comes to SEO.
For instance, if you’re constantly searching for your own name or your business name or your website and clicking on the link, that is not going to give you any sort of bump in search engine ranking.
Plainly put, just stop clicking.
If it were the case, then all these big companies that have plenty of people and can afford to hire plenty of people would just sit around all day in a room and click on their own website.
So one thing we know for sure. Stop clicking on your own site.
So now that we know what doesn’t work as an example, let’s actually look at 10 things that do influence your ranking in a search engine result page.
Now, some of these directly will affect your ranking and some of them are indirect.
But overall, these are my 10 favorite SEO ranking factors.
Number one, back links.
So, a backlink is when someone else has a link back to your website. So, this could be in a Chamber of Commerce directory. This could be in another blog that cited something you wrote and they’re linking back to you simply called a backlink.
Number two, freshness.
How fresh is your content? Certainly, an article that you wrote yesterday versus one on the same topic you wrote five years ago isn’t as fresh, things change and Google always wants to show the freshest information. to people when they search. So that’s why blogging and staying up to date keeping your content fresh is important.
Number three, topical authority.
So, if you’re writing a blog article about, let’s say, five ways to improve your skin and your website is actually about how to make muffins, then you probably don’t have too much authority when it comes to the skin topic. So, you always want to make sure that your website has the same topics and that what you’re writing about actually makes sense. So, keep it topical.
Number four, the content you write, you want to match it up with what the searcher is searching for.
That’s called search intent. So, when you’re writing your blog articles, are you answering the questions that people are actually looking for online? Does it match up with what people are searching for? That’s search intent.
Number five, content depth.
How deep are you going in your content? If it’s something that you can easily write in one hundred words and a person will understand – OK, fine, maybe not that deep, but you got the point across. But if you’re writing something, let’s say maybe you’re a financial adviser or a lawyer or a doctor, you probably cannot get away with a hundred words to explain something. You need to go a little deeper. And Google recognizes this. That’s why they love content depth.
Number six, page speed.
If you’re like me, we’re impatient. We just can’t wait for something to load when it comes to the Internet. And that’s how users are. We’re all the same. You’ve got to make sure that your website loads fast and loads properly. That’s page speed.
And when I talk about load properly, that’s point number seven.
You’ve probably seen this that little padlock in the corner by your website address. That’s your HTTPS. And that is all about security. You’ve seen this in the Google Web browser. Sometimes you’ll go to a website and it will give you a warning that this site is not safe. Well, that has to do because the site doesn’t have the HTTPS or the SSL certificate. The site might be perfectly fine, but Google wants you to know it’s missing it. And users do love seeing that SSL certificate and that padlock.
The next thing is mobile friendliness.
Everyone is searching on their phones nowadays. We use it constantly. When I go to your website, is it mobile friendly? Am I having to use my fingers to look and expand things to make things bigger. Am I having to bring in the screen so I can actually read the content? He’s just got to make sure that your website is mobile friendly.
That has to do with point number nine, UX, User Experience.
If it’s not going to be good for the user. Google is going to know and your website’s not going to rank. So, you’ve got to think about the user and everything that you do for your website. Make the experience great.
And the last thing when it comes to direct and indirect rankings for SEO and for your website is content accuracy. This goes back to all the things I talked about, the freshness, the content, depth. We want to make sure that the content you’re writing is accurate. So, make sure if you’re citing someone that what their website is accurate, make sure what you’re writing is accurate. That’s the number 10 thing.
So there you go. 10 ways and 10 items to make sure that your website is going to rank high when it comes to a search engine result.
This has been Your Marketing Minute from Forward Push. My name is Marc Apple and I’ll see you next week.
Updated September 2020: Bonus Video
10 Types of Content That Will Help Your Local SEO
