“What formula does Google use to determine where your website gets listed?” Wow, if we knew the answer to that we’d be rich. The problem with that question is that there is no definitive answer. There is no one formula that can be exploited to ensure your Google ranking is always number one!
With that said, there are some simple, basic strategies that need to be adhered to when putting your website up for public view. These all factor into the Google (and Yahoo, MSN, Bing, Ask.com, etc.) formulas, but how each is weighted varies and in some cases changes daily to ensure the content remains fresh and unexploited.
So, here’s our list of some basic determining factors for SEO ranking:
Tracking and statistics: First and foremost, make sure you have proper tracking on your website, such as Google analytics. These tools are invaluable when tracking the performance of your pages and your website in general. If you don’t have it, get it. Yahoo and Bing have similar setups, but Google Analytics is still the best.
Age of Domain: Age of URL is very important. Sadly, there is no way to speed up this factor. If you are a new website with a new domain name, it’s going to take time to get this factor to go up. The reason this is important is that domain longevity helps build trust. If your website has been online for several years, chances are you have an established business.
Domain Hosting: Where is your site hosted? In this instance, outsourcing is a bad idea! The country in which your site is hosted plays a big role in how it gets scored. Always use a reputable hosting company. If you are a US based business, host in the US, if you are a UK based site, host it in the UK. When it comes to hosting, don’t go cheap. Also, make darn sure you have a dedicated (non rolling) IP. Some hosting sites that use clouds or virtual dedicated can change IP’s. This is a sign of website instability, so always make sure your hosted server is dedicated and demand a static IP for your server only. Never use the cheapest hosting. Let me be blunt… if you can’t afford decent hosting, then don’t expect to yield good SEO results.
Your Neighbors: If you have a virtual server or shared server, which even the big name hosting sites like Start Logic and Go Daddy use, chances are your site shares the same IP as dozens (possibly hundreds) of other websites. Make sure that your neighbors on your server are not porn or classified as spam.
Content: Content isn’t just an important ranking factor, it is THE most important (IMHO). Make sure you have your keyword phrases on all your important pages, then make sure it is spread out evenly throughout the page (the beginning, several times in the middle, and at the end). And don’t just write mindless words for the sake of filling a page. The content must be relevant! I’m not saying that search engine algorithms are able to detect BS, but your readers are! The goal of SEO is to get people to visit your site or link. Once they do, you want them to come back. If they visit your site and see it contains a bunch of junk, they’re not coming back. And guess what the major search engines also consider in their rankings? You got it, time on page and returning visitors. Always write your content for humans and NEVER write content for the sole purpose of SEO formula injection.
URL Structure: Make sure your URL structures are very clean. There should not be any random strings of characters at the end of your URL’s. This is a trap that a lot of resellers fall into. They register the short version of their long URL thinking that bit.ly/Djs8ds is simpler to read and also hides the fact the user is being redirected to a reseller link… And that is correct. But, search engine algorithms don’t understand gibberish at the end of a URL. The tradeoff is that you can fool users into clicking on an obvious reseller link, but you will not score at all in regards to SEO.
Keywords: This is an SEO lesson in and of itself, but some basic information includes making sure your website is optimized using your keyword phrases. This means placing that text in any alt tags for images, meta page information, and existing content (laid out according to our Content rule above).
Bounce Rate: Again, this is something that is hard for you to control, but sticking to some basic guidelines ensures that your bounce rate is kept to a minimum. Make frequent changes to get visitors engaged with your website. Simple things like video tutorials, newsletter subscriptions, and comments will help improve your bounce rate over time.
Internal Link Structure: Make sure your inner pages are linked correctly. Visitors should not have to hunt, peck, and wonder about how to navigate your site. Make menus and links clear, concise, and visible. Every so often, make sure there are no broken links in your navigation chain! Broken links are a punishment in SEO rankings. Make sure the code of your website is verified and keep flash and JavaScript to a minimum, if you can. Clean and easy to read is the way to go.
Trust: How do you gain trust? Well, if you don’t have the benefit of a well aged domain name, you need to provide people (and search engines) with a reason to think your legitimate and here to stay. If you have a physical business address, list it. Search engines like to see that you are not just a web based business, but also a physical business. Phone numbers are important, too. Even if you Skype or GoToMeeting most of your customer interaction, an actual phone number helps users and search engines feel that this is your only business and that all resources are exercised to ensure your availability. At a bare minimum, at least provide a customer service or support email address. The goal is to make it easy for people to do business with you.
Outbound links: Make sure the websites that you link to are 100% relevant to your business and industry. Don’t think for a second that a hundred links to unrelated sites is better than 10 links to genre matching content. Consider each and every link.
Want to learn more about SEO strategies and tactics? We’re only a couple of months away from releasing our training section, but until then we have a little SEO primer called “Backlink Generation in Minutes.” You can download it for free using this link.
There are many extensive and exclusive factors that all search engines use when determining where your website ranks amongst the others. The bottom line is is that to truly conquer SEO, your site must be relevant, informative, user friendly, and trusted.
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