Understanding SEO and How Search Engines Rank Your Content
First off, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is complicated. It’s ever changing and is its own industry, with high level experts and companies that devote thousands, even millions of dollars for agencies to help improve their SEO. We are in no ways SEO experts, and we certainly do not make millions or even thousands of dollars off of it. But we do know enough about it, and follow along with the changes and tools available, to be able to build websites with consideration to SEO and help small businesses navigate through some of the things that they can do to improve their own website’s SEO.
That being said, we wanted to share some basic info to help you better understand how your website content gets ranked by the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo). We’ll talk about Google because it’s the most important one, and chances are you’ve already Googled five things today - we sure have.
Let’s start with how your content gets ranked in search results. The process relies predominantly on two things that you can be doing:
Building DISCOVERY and RELEVANCE by creating lots of high-quality content on the topics you want to be known for
Building AUTHORITY by getting lots of high-quality backlinks to your website
Search engines are constantly crawling websites (including yours) to see what is out there, so they can index its relevance to a particular topic or search query. Then, they rank the content based on the authority of the website publishing said content.
First of all, the content needs to be online and be searchable by Google in order for them to discover it. Then, said content needs to be written in a way that makes it most relevant to the question that is being asked in the search bar. Search engine bots decide how relevant your content is to certain search queries by indexing it. Finally, the content needs to be written by a publisher that has proven authority on the topic or significant existing traffic to their website. Search engine bots will rank your content in search results based on your site’s SEO authority and will compare it to others that have published similar content related to the search query. The most authoritative on the subject wins in search rankings.
For example, if you write a blog post about “dogs on Martha’s Vineyard”, you need to publish it on your website, be sure to use proper keywords and tags to optimize it for search so Google can find it. Be sure to share it broadly so you can drive traffic to the post. Don’t expect it to rank if someone is asking Google about “dogs on Cape Cod” or “kittens on Martha’s Vineyard” as it’s not relevant. If this is the first time you’re writing about this subject and you don’t have much other content about “dogs on Martha’s Vineyard” on your website or high traffic to your website in general, do not expect that your new blog is going to rank anywhere near the top.
It’s important to remember that discovery, relevance, and authority are dependent on one another. If your content isn’t relevant, then it has little chance of ranking, no matter how authoritative it is. If your website isn’t authoritative, then it has little chance of ranking, no matter how relevant it is. So the website for the author that is known for writing about dogs on Martha’s Vineyard is going to continue to rank higher than you.
And if your website can’t be discovered in the first place, it has no chance of ranking at all! So what can you do about increasing your website SEO? Start by creating content that is relevant to what you want to be discovered for, and share it broadly so that it is talked about a lot, and ideally picked up and referenced by other websites that have higher traffic than you. You want to create content that people will refer to again and again, and that people will be compelled to share because it offers helpful or new information on the topic at hand. Fingers crossed the content is cited by other bigger publishers and the backlinks they publish (the links on their website back to yours) helps to build up your authority.
We tell our clients all the time how important online press mentions and even paid directory listings can be for their business. For example, if you can get a story written about your business in the MV Times or Vineyard Gazette there is a good chance that those stories about your business will help you rank higher in search results for what you want to be found for, because the search traffic to those websites is likely higher than yours and your competitors. Even though their sites aren’t devoted to the same type of content that your site is (making it less relevant), just by them mentioning you, their authority ranks higher than your authority. Get it?
For example, google “digital marketing Martha’s Vineyard.” It’s likely you’ll find Shored Up Digital on the front page, with a link to our website as well as a link to us referenced in the MV Times and our business included in a directory listing for Social Media Marketing on the Chamber of Commerce’s site. Our website comes up at the top as our site's content is devoted to digital Marketing on Martha’s Vineyard, so it’s super relevant and the MV Times and MVY.com rank high because they are authorities with a ton of search traffic.
So more authority = better ranking strength = higher ranking in search results.
Want to know more or some suggestions for your particular website? Email us at hello@shoredupdigital.com and let’s chat about how we can help with your SEO! For additional resources on SEO check out HubSpot, SEMRUSH, and Search Engine Land. For tools to help improve your SEO, be sure to download Keywords Everywhere, a browser add-on for Chrome & Firefox that shows search volume, CPC & competition on multiple websites; as well as referencing Ubersuggest which allows you to get insight into the strategies that are working for others in your market so you can adopt them, improve them, and gain an advantage over your competitiors.