Google is one of the most popular search engines in the world, and is among the first things most people turn to when they need to find anything online. That makes it vitally important to understand the basics of how Google ranks their results, and what that means for your website.
In this post we're gonna share with you 3 key facts about Google's ranking system that you absolutely need to know. They're easy to understand, but have a huge impact on your ability to make Google work for you...
Relevance is King
First, of course Google wants to return results that are relevant to the search query. This might seem obvious, but it's an important distinction in Google's ranking system. Even if you don't put a lot of effort into building your site and trying to rank, it can still receive some traffic if it's already relevant to the search query.
For example, you could start a blog on the topic of "video games" and then create some high-quality articles on that topic. Even though you had no intention of ranking for "video games", it's still important that your site is relevant because your articles were what brought people to the site in the first place.
The more relevant a page is, the more likely it will be found high in Google's search results, which means you'll get traffic even if you don't put any real money into SEO for that page. It sounds like a win-win situation!
Links are King
A second aspect of Google's ranking system is links. So how are links relevant in Google's ranking system?
If you have a website, chances are that there are many other websites out there linking to yours. There are two types of link: internal and external.
An internal link is one that goes from one page within your site to another, like the someone on your blog linking from post 1 to post 2 and so on. That's a great example of an internal link because it naturally advances the content and helps people find their way around your site.
External links are links that customers and clients can use to get to your site. For example, if you have a website about wordpress, you might want to link to another wordpress tutorial on your site or get press coverage for the latest wordpress news. You know that the external links will help your readers find you.
So far, we've been talking about internal links. Now we get to external links. Google's algorithm knows that your link is important if other sites are linking to yours, or if you're linking to another site on your blog. In other words, if you're giving someone else a link, it's because you think it's valuable, so Google thinks so too. This is a huge part of why Google ranks sites about wordpress so high—the wordpress community has been linking to all the big wordpress sites, creating one of the largest and most important internal networks on the Internet today.
One thing to note is that you have to have the right type of link. If you're paying for links, Google will detect it and will not count your site very highly in their search results. The same goes for getting links from spammy sites, whether paid or not. So to optimize your site for Google, pay attention to the types of links you gain and make sure they're all high-quality.
Sites with Authority are King
Finally, authority plays a big role in Google's ranking system. This means that sites that have high-quality pages, links and content are ranked highly. The most important aspect of authority is the quality of your content, so don't expect to rank high in Google until you've put some serious time and effort into building a site with authority.
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