If you have a website, or have been on the Internet long enough, you have definitely used a search engine like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and so on.
This leads to the question how does a website get ranked? Well, websites are ranked by relevance, when somebody searches for you or keywords related to you, a search engine has to figure out which results are most useful to the searcher, and show them those results.
Ultimately, the more useful your website is to a searcher, the better you will rank.
What Helps a Website Rank?
Useful Content & Keywords
When your website’s content is focused about specific keywords, that helps it rank for those keywords. The more useful or interesting your content is, the better.
Some examples of content that can help you rank are: how-to guides, tutorials, resources for customers, or even just company news & information. It all comes down to thinking about what your audience might want or need.
Relevant Backlinks
A backlink is when a website links to someone else’s, it helps show search engines that the person linking to you found your content useful. This can help you rank higher.
There are different ways to get these backlinks:
- Create & share useful content that catches the eye of someone else in your industry
- Get your website or article posted in an industry news site or newsletter.
- Ask for a listing from a partner of yours, or an industry association you’re a member of.
- Join your local chamber of commerce to get listed in their directory.
Locality
If your business is in the same city, or county as the person searching, that can sometimes help you get ranked higher in that area. This relates to a subdiscipline of Search Engine Optimization, called local SEO.
Age
The longer a site has been around, the more inherent link authority it has compared to a brand new website.
How Can I Rank Higher?
The real question to ask here is not “how can I rank higher?” but usually, how can I get more traffic?
For some industries and types of website, it can be incredibly difficult, if not impossible to rank higher for the main keywords for your industry. It would be like a collector & seller of Coke memorabilia trying to rank for Coke, it’s not likely.
The trick is to focus on long-tail keywords about your unique selling point or niche, promote yourself through social media channels, get listed in relevant directories, and perhaps even paid ads online, or elsewhere.
It’s a Marathon
To wrap it up, your site gets ranked for a ton of factors, which ultimately try to decide how relevant it is to a searcher. It takes time to build authority, links, and content for search. Basically, it’s a marathon.
We set you up for success in this marathon by optimizing your site for keywords where appropriate, and providing the right technical information to search engines. As well as by optimizing your pages to engage your visitors, and with useful titles & descriptions for search.
This is just scratching the surface of site ranking & SEO, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
Sources:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/beginner/how-search-works
