Alright, let us keep it short, simple, sweet and straight-forward. SEO is brief for Search Engine Optimization. Trust us; there is no real mysticism to it. SEO is a measurable, repetitive method used for sending signals to search engines shown in the Google index on your websites.
In essence, Google employs a complicated mathematical formula called an algorithm to show every website and every Google search engine which site should be the most suitable tool for what individuals want.
For the sake of convenience, assume the algorithm like a collection of empty buckets. While one bucket gives you a score for the quality of your site, another bucket gives you a score for how many sites link to you, and a third bucket gives you a score for how people trust you. Your job is to fill up more buckets in the algorithm than any other website.
There are several methods and ways to affect your website ranking and scores. Your website’s search engine ranking can be affected positively by having the highest score for quality of the website, having the highest score in terms of authority of your website (domain and page) and by having the highest score in terms of visitor’s trust and the redressal available for their queries.
However, there is a brilliant aspect to it. Consider there are a hundred buckets. For every single one of these buckets, these scores that put together in the algorithm to figure out where you rank. Now, that is an opportunity for you to fill it up. As scores fill up, the resultant yield is better ranking. So, to optimise your site for search results actually means obtaining highest scores in as many of these points as you possibly can.
Since we are talking about several buckets for the sake of convenience, we need to also make it clear that there are a few buckets that are way more valuable and worth more than all the others put together. Out of some of them, let us address three buckets for now that aid in building up your search rankings – quality, trust and authority.
1. Quality
So, keep in mind that Google is always trying to measure the websites by the unique offerings that these websites put forth for the customers. When websites offer products that are valuable and important in a creative sense, Google identifies and displays it for the searchers.
Imagine that you are a seller and are trying to sell a t-shirt online with the same description that every other t-shirt seller is using. In this case, Google considers that you are not offering anything unique and hence does not show it to the searchers/customers.
Despite having cool and trendy t-shirts up for sale, you might be wondering what the problem is. It is the content. Since Google cannot come and verify the genuineness of the quality of the products, you need to describe your product in a more unique and different manner to make it stand out from the rest.
Be more descriptive and try to be as unique as possible. Offer them certain features like t-shirt personalization, additional offers, stain resistance properties etc. Describing about the perfect occasion to wear the t-shirt also helps Google identify it easily.
In short, don your thinking hats and get creative. Ask for product reviews from the customers and ask a couple of them to share images of the purchased order to check the veracity of the product. Pay a celebrity to wear your t-shirt and get his/her pictures clicked for the advertising campaigns. Do everything in your might to let Google know that you are way better than the competition.
2. Trust
The second most important bucket that you need to be aware of while filling up the buckets with scores is the trust. Trust factor helps a lot during the website ranking process. Always remember that Google does not want to show any website for the sake of it. It wants to show the best websites among the crowd, the ones that are trustworthy.
In fact, Google has indicated in the past that it likes to penalize sites, stores or enterprises that constantly garner bad reviews. In case your company has been getting bad reviews persistently, Google will figure that in time eventually. And when that happens, Google removes your website from their search results due to your website’s bad track record and also due to the fact that it simply does not allow for poor performers on its search list.
So, prove to Google that your website is worthy enough to be in their top search results. To build that level of trust, get other highly authoritative websites to post a do-follow link to your website on their domain. Get featured in newspaper articles and blogs with links posted to your website. In doing so, you will be able to achieve high credibility and a good trust factor.
3. Authority
Yet another important bucket to fill the scores with is the authority. Google always wants to display in their results the websites that are most popular. If there is a reputed t-shirt seller online, it denotes that people are searching for their products. Evidently, Google wants to show only such websites in their search results. So, you have to send clear signals to Google that your site is the most popular site for the kind of t-shirts that you sell.
You could do so by building a dedicated customer base on social media. Get them to share your website on their profiles, obtain a couple of testimonials for the quality of your products and create a buzz about your product on the social networking platforms. When people talk about you, that is when Google recognises your authority and that gives you an opportunity to fill your bucket with scores that you want.
Bottom-line:
In short, Search Engine Optimization is a fool-proof method to showcase to search engines that your website is the best site, the most unique and interesting, the most trusted and the most authoritative of all the sites that they can offer in their search results. As a result, Google will recognise your website and confidently offer your website to their customers – the searchers. In turn, your page will rank on the first page of Google.
