Are you
an online business owner? Have you heard about Google search ranking? It has
everything to do with your website showing up higher when users type in
keywords that are relevant to your business. Optimization of your website for
search engines, technically search engine optimization or SEO, is about to
become a $100 billion business because of the importance of getting higher
ranking on search engine results pages or SERPs and gaining organic traffic.
Digital marketing companies can help you with SEO.
Google
Search Ranking – What Is It
In
simple terms, it is the results you get to see when you search for something on
Google by typing in a keyword or keyword phrase. Some people may think that
Google picks up some websites at random. This is not correct. Results actually
display links to websites that have been carefully chosen based on relevance.
The
concept is very simple. The higher your website shows up in search results, the
better is your Google search ranking. In Google, there are two types of search
ranking – organic and sponsored. Sponsored ranking refers to paid searches
implemented through Pay-Per-Click or PPC advertising by digital marketing
companies.
In
this article, we will be focusing on natural searches that lead to organic
ranking. This means that you don’t have to pay to advertise your website. You
earn your ranking naturally.
Good
Search Ranking – Why Is It Important
Good
search ranking increases the visibility of your business. Further, users are
more likely to visit the top five or six websites. Very few people go beyond
the first page of Google’s SERPs for particular keywords or keyword phrases.
This means that if your website does not show up on the first page when users
type in keywords relevant to your business, the traffic to your website will be
extremely low and your business will fail.
The
higher your Google search ranking, the higher will be the traffic to your
website. Your conversions will be better and you will earn more customers.
Further, an increase in traffic enhances the reputation of your business.
Consumers trust and hence prefer to visit authority sites that show higher up
in SERPs.
Google
Search Ranking – How Can You Improve It
Google
takes several factors into account for ranking sites. The most important
factors are:
Link
Building
Link
building refers to generating backlinks to your site. If a number of links
point to your website, then Google attaches some value to it. You can contact
bloggers and request them to naturally include links to your web pages in their
content. This is a time-consuming process, but it has been found to be very
effective. Another option available to you is buying high-quality backlinks. It
helps to save time, but it is expensive. However, many businesses have achieved
success through paid backlinks. You may have to seek the help of professional
digital marketing companies for this purpose.
Content
Content
is one of the main factors that Google considers when ranking sites. The search
engine gives a lot of weight for valuable content. The updates to Google’s
search algorithm are always aimed at punishing websites that provide
meaningless, spammy, or plagiarized content. This means that you should make
sure that the content on your website relevant and valuable to your target
audience. Further, the content should be organized properly by providing
headers, images, and videos.
Responsive
Website Design
It has
become increasingly important to make your website responsive or
mobile-friendly. Making your site mobile-friendly makes it more SEO-friendly as
well. This is because billions of people now access Google's mobile site for
searches. As a matter of fact, mobile searches outnumber desktop searches now.
As per Google’s current search algorithm, responsive websites get a boost in
their search ranking lists. Further, websites that are not mobile-friendly are
penalized.