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Google Ranking Factors In Digital Marketing
SEO
SEO is the most misrepresented element of digital marketing. Small businesses are still being goaded into believing they can rank off of ‘one time’ onsite meta tag building, or by adding a blog post twice a month. While these are part of SEO, they are not enough to help your website rank.
Google doesn’t give us full transparency. A good SEO is a math genius. Google’s algorithms are mathematical calculations that build correlation and causality between different factors. The result is placing one website on page #1 of Google, and not ranking another in the top 100 google positions.
Both of those website might have had the same keywords, and great content. They may both have met all of Google’s requirements for ranking. They may even both receive the same traffic and have the same conversion-to-buyer ratio. So why does one rank, and another not rank?
To understand ranking, you need to be familiar with Spearman’s rank Correlation Coefficient Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient
The following list of Google Ranking Factors only represent factors where the data is quantifiable and can be interpreted. Google collects and validates other data that is not included here like click-through-rates, time spent on-page and returning visitors. They also have ranking factors that you cannot track from your analytics.
Google Variables and Signals
One example of this is, “If a website holds #1 position on google and no one clicks it, but they are clicking the #4 position, then Google will move the #4 position up to #1.”
Google wants to give people content they want. If no one wants to read a brochure website that talks about your business and doesn’t answer their questions – then it will not rank for the prime keywords.
Remember that Google ranks webpages, not web sites.
Google Ranking Factors vs Ranking on SERPS
It is important to understand that something may not be a direct ranking signal, but still have an effect on where a webpage appears on the SERPS.
It is also important to realize that your website might appear at the top of Google in one location, and not in another. We have also seen evidence that the sites you’ve been searching and viewing can effect what SERPS appear as you continue to research and/or shop.
Google E-A-T
E-A-T- Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It was introduced in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines—a 168-page document, published in 2013, and created for human quality raters to assess the quality of Google’s search results.
Google published this document online to “help webmasters understand what Google looks for in a web page.”
Google says that E-A-T is not, in itself, a ranking factor. However, they also say that the impact E-A-T has on the user’s experience does effect ranking, so in that sense, yes, it is a ranking factor.
SEO Starts in the Code
We have long preached that SEO starts at the server. This is evident in the speed difference between Apache and lightspeed. But the code is important. We’ve spend up many websites by removing the theme. Yes, the theme makes life easier, but you don’t need it in the ROOT of your website. There are ways to construct a website to make it faster loading, easier to optimize, and still appear pleasing to the end user.