1. What Makes a “Quality” Site
Recently, I had a Twitter interaction with a reader who thought that Google was doing a poor job of ranking the sites with the highest quality information. In the discussion, the reader stated that Google should be able to determine the best information about a topic and rank that site at the top SEO services.
I argued that while there are certainly many blatant examples of Google ranking a site that doesn’t make sense for a specific query, they get it right way more often than they get it wrong.
Most of the time, they do.
But if your site isn’t ranking for the desired query, and you think your content is better than what is ranking, then it’s easy to just say Google has it wrong.
Recently, Google’s John Mueller tweeted that when looking at quality, webmasters need to look at their whole site, not just the pages that aren’t ranking or are not indexed.
In other words, it’s not just about the page that targets the money keyword you want to rank for.
- Creating quality content for the whole site is imperative to ranking, especially for competitive keywords.
- We no longer live in a world where specific doorway pages that follow a reverse-engineered formula will result in rankings for competitive keywords.
- It’s like the old saying – a rising tide floats all boats.
- Quality content throughout an entire site increases the value of all pages.
But quality is somewhat subjective.
As I stated in that recent Twitter interaction, it’s difficult to know what the best quality site is for a specific topic.
- Google makes this determination algorithmically.
- But that algorithm takes into account decades of data, as well well billions of searches each week.
- Run a Full Website Scan in Minutes
- Check for over 130+ common website issues and get special reports about your site’s crawlability, internal linking, speed & performance, and more.
- They are pretty good at determining what quality looks like.
- My best advice is to spend as much time as possible understanding what your prospects are looking for and then providing it to them.
You can look at Google’s rater guidelines to understand a bit about what Google considers quality.
But at the end of the day, if you work to become the best answer to your prospect’s questions, you’ll also end up ranking pretty well.
2. We Don’t Spend Enough on Content
I’m selling a site, most prospects are very worried about the technical details of the site, assuming those are what will take the longest to implement.
- We haven’t had a site miss its proposed launch date because of technical issues, well… ever.
- But we have had sites miss their launch dates because the content wasn’t ready.
- Most people assume that they will be able to write the content for their site themselves.
- After all, they know their company and their products better than anyone else.
- But as I can attest, writing copy for your own site is infinitely harder than it appears to be.
When it comes to search engine optimization and conversions, the component of the website that is considered to be the most significant is the content.
Why, therefore, do the owners of so many websites treat content as an afterthought?
I believe that the problem lies in the fact that we have an incorrect conception of the content.
- The majority of site owners believe that all they need to do is post something, possibly something that is already featured in their printed istanbul escort brochures.
- And when it comes to new and updated content, well, maintaining that level of quality requires a lot of time and resources.
- There are many websites and blogs on the internet that have not been updated in many weeks, months, or even years.
- It is simple to fool yourself into thinking that you will be able to continually add new content to your website.
- After the first launch, however, most websites are unable to add very much new content because they lack both a plan and the appropriate resources.
3. Stop Obsessing Over Those Who Are Competing With You
There are a lot of newcomers to search engine marketing, as well as veterans, who spend a lot of time examining the websites that rank higher than their own in the search engine results pages.
It is essential to have a solid understanding of what factors into rankings and what does not.
However, fixating on one’s rivals is unhelpful and should be avoided.
Even the most seasoned SEO professionals will have difficulty pinpointing the specific reasons behind why one website ranks higher than another.
- Getting too deep into the weeds of competition analysis is typically an undertaking that yields little fruit and is quite aggravating.
- It would be more beneficial to use that time to create high-quality content that addresses the concerns and issues of your prospects.
- Because the competition is ranking highly for one term, the site owner mimics the strategies, which has a terrible effect on the SEO results of the site owner’s own website. I’ve seen site owners watch their competitor do something that, quite honestly, harms their SEO results.
- When determining the rankings of websites, Google takes into account hundreds, if not thousands, of different factors. These variables, in addition to the way in which they are weighted, are constantly subject to change.
And there is a high probability that your rival is much more confused than you are at this point.
It is usually to your advantage to work on improving your own website rather than fixating on what other websites in your industry are doing.
Sure thing, check out what they have to offer. However, it is essential to understand that they most likely do not know anything that you do not already know.
