Google SEO - How does it work?
Google has evolved enormously over the last 20 years. The first 10 years Google had to rely on the keywords that site owners added to the site themselves, but nowadays it can understand any text and nuance, and will decide itself what your website is about. So how does Google determine your website's position?
Google is a business Like any other business, Google’s ultimate goal is to optimise its profit. A large part of that profit is earned through paid search ads in Google. Thus, its reputation as the best search engine in the world is extremely important to Google’s income. For that reason Google will scrutinise every new website it finds, making sure that its clients (people who search) will be happy when Google presents this site to them.
Google evaluates all aspects of your site When a new site is found by Google, it will index every page separately as a single entity. It will determine a unique subject for every page based on the text on the page. Please be aware, it does not look for keywords in the coding! It actually penalises websites that are using too many keywords.
When people type in a search in Google that is strongly related to this subject, Google will add the specific page to the list of search results. But now comes the important part: at which position will Google place your site in certain searches?
Google position To determine the position of your site in a specific search (for a specific search term/subject), Google will compare your page about that subject with all other pages in the world that have a similar subject and will rank them all according to its criteria.
In this ranking, Google will look at all aspects of the site: the texts (optimisation), but more than that to design, structure, navigation, user-friendliness and sales effectiveness! In short, it just looks how well accepted the site is by its visitors. If the people that search for a certain subject are happy when they arrive at a site, then this site will rank higher than a site where people drop off quickly.
Therefore, your site will have to be the best website in all its aspects for a certain subject to rank number one in Google searches.
Choose the right subject/keyword One more thing, your site could rank on number one in Google for certain searches, but make sure that these searches are the words that are also typed in by your target group when they search for your products or services. Too often website owners get complacent when they type in a logical search term in Google (or just the name of their business) and see that they appear on number one. Just remember that most of your potential customers do not know your business name yet, so they will not be searching for it. Similarly this might be the case with any other search term. Maybe nobody types it in, ever!
Measure To make sure your website is found in Google, make sure that you measure your traffic and determine how they found you: through which channel and with which keyword. Your website’s Analytics will show you both and can even tell you which channel delivers you more visitors that also buy from you.
Do contact us if you have any questions about SEO or how well your site ranks. We will be happy to evaluate your site’s SEO ranking for you.