Research how to get your website to rank highly in the search engines, and you’ll likely find information regarding keyword usage, page titles, meta tags, good content, quality inbound links, etc. While all of these factors are essential in order for your website to rank highly so that your target audience finds you, there are a few more that are seldom discussed – which is why we’re going to talk about them here!
Usability and speed. Google and other search engines are constantly refining just how much they can detect not only in terms of keyword frequency and quality of content, but how long visitors stay on your website, which pages they visit, even the time it takes a page to load. In the recent Panda update, it’s suspected that Google can now even discern the advertising to content ratio – and, you guessed it, quality content rides high above a site filled with advertising. Ultimately, it’s all about a great user experience.
Freshness of content. Yes, Google does favor older, trusted websites. However, today it’s all about fresh content, but that doesn’t simply mean new content. It means original, valuable content that stands out from all of the same old re-hashed content found all over the web. Put fresh content that’s unique on an authority, trusted website and you may be surprised to see that those pages can outrank an older page that has numerous inbound links!
Regional/physical location. Did you know that Google often uses the server’s location to detect where to rank a website according to the geographical area to target results for? For instance, if your website is hosted in a European city and you have not set up the feature in Google Webmaster tools to target a specific geographic area, your website may rank higher for your keywords using European search engines than it does in the country you’re physically located in, such as the U.S.
This is just the short list; there are literally hundreds of signals that search engines use to rank results, some that we aren’t even aware of (Google does like to be secretive). Keep the above factors in mind when trying to boost your website up a few notches.
E.B.B. Interactive is an SEO firm based in Atlanta and Honolulu. Interested in outsourcing your SEO needs? Call 877-323-0661 to find out more!
