Every day, it becomes more important for businesses to have a strong Internet presence. No matter what business you’re running, having a good Google ranking gives it some very much-needed visibility. Understanding Google’s rankings can make or break a business’s web presence.
These five concepts can help your business climb to the top of Google’s search engine.
1. Content, content, content
More than anything, you must understand what Google wants. Google loves new, unique, and high-quality content. So, you need to constantly fill your website original material, such as videos, photos and blogs. Blogging a few times a month will not only show off your industry expertise, but it will make an impact on your rankings. Make sure that your blogs are original. When you copy and paste, Google can actually penalize your website for plagiarism. Understanding that well-written, new content can create more business and improve Google rankings is vital on today’s Internet.
2. Increase Your Google PageRank
Google ranks pages on a 1-10 scale, with one being the worst and 10 the best, using an “algorithm.” An algorithm is an engine that measures a website’s quality. Google’s engine is called “PageRank. There are many ways pages can score high rankings, but one of the major keys is getting other sites to have links back to you. A PageRank is a way for Google to determine how popular your website is.
So, in Google’s eyes, getting your website on other websites shows Google that your site is popular. Popularity will elevate you up the search engine ladder.
3. Embrace Social Media
Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube all play a role in rankings as well. These sites help you to create strong links that Google will then use to give you a higher PageRank. These sites also have the added benefit of getting your business seen in more places, creating an even larger online presence for your company.
4. Have Plenty of Links on Your Page
Links are the currency to the World Wide Web and a driving force behind how Google judges your page. As stated earlier, Google uses the links that go to your website to decide how popular it is. Having your link on other pages is only part of the equation. Getting your link on sites that already have a high PageRank offer the opportunity to move up Google’s rankings even faster. This is an example of why it’s so important to have a blog that people will want to share. Make sure that your content can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites as well.
It is also important to get what are called DoFollow links. A DoFollow link tells Google to follow the link to the website it links to. Social media links are DoFollow links, and that is one reason they are so important. Without links, Google will not rank your page as highly as others that do have links.
5. Monitor Your Online Reputation
Maintaining a good reputation online is highly important. Sometimes you are going to have unhappy customers. Every business does. However, letting negative comments sit on the Internet without being addressed can hurt a business.
It is important to do monthly searches for your brand and combat any negativity. Negative comments showing up in a Google search for your business can undermine all the other steps you take to get higher rankings.
Understanding these concepts, as a whole, is extremely important to your website success on Google. Quality, new content drives traffic and leads to new links to your site, as does social media. All these things play a role together with SEO to help improve what Google thinks of your page, and, in turn, how much business you can drive to your website.
