How does Google work?
"We know Google's secret. Of course, it really doesn't sound that secret. Google 'just' has some exciting and specialized, but basically it's all logical evaluation criteria by which they compare Web pages. If you know these, you can capitalize on them. So are online marketing agencies redundant? Certainly not, even if we say so ourselves! It still takes specialist work and especially a lot of time to meet these evaluation criteria. We take you through the broad outlines of Google's current policy. But eh ... don't tell anyone!
Organic or SEA?
First of all, what's important to know: Google usually shows two types of search results: paid ads and organic search results. Paid ads work under the rules of SEA (which you can read more about here), or Search Engine Advertising. Here you pay to appear at the very top of the search results for certain keywords. Then the content of the landing page your ad links to determines whether and how high it will appear here and how much ad fee you have to pay when someone clicks on it. Very convenient if you want to get to the top quickly, less convenient just that it says it's an ad.... This also makes it very important for most organizations to rank high in organic search results.|
SEO
The organic search results, that is, the search results that are not ads, are ranked according to the rules of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Google looks at (crawled) every nook and cranny of the Internet once every three months to assess how a page ranks. This score determines how high the page appears in the results for certain keywords. This score consists of three pillars:
1. Content
Google evaluates the content of a page on a number of factors. For example, the text should be long enough (more than 300 words at least), it should preferably contain images, some links to other pages on the site and links to other websites. This ensures that Google's programs will find it a worthy page. These things are important to get high in search results at all.
When we talk about a specific keyword and Google's rating, we see that the search engine considers it important for the keyword to appear in the title of the page and in the name of the images. Also, the word should be used scattered throughout the text, but not too often. The search engine will catch on if you write words purely for findability - it has to be really good content!
Furthermore, Google pays attention that there is only one main headline, that the keyword is in the meta description of the page, in the alt tag of the images and in the first paragraph of the text. It is also important that the title and meta description are not too short or too long. If all these things are in order, the content portion of Google's assessment is virtually optimized!
2. Technical SEO
This part of Google’s evaluation focuses on the website’s technical performance. Here, it’s important that the website’s user experience is optimal. For example, pages should load as quickly as possible (you can help with this by avoiding overly large images), ideally there should be no broken links (404 errors), and there should be no pages that aren’t linked to by any other pages (orphan pages). These are errors in Google’s eyes. They prefer that the top-ranking sites are also pleasant for users to visit.
3. Link Building
This third pillar usually takes the most time and effort, but link building is incredibly important for your website’s value. Google looks at how many and which websites have a link to your website. Does that mean you should reach out to as many websites as possible and ask them to please post a link to your website? Not exactly. Google also checks whether the websites are relevant to yours and how well they themselves score on the three pillars...
Of course, the ideal scenario is if you publish such high-quality content that other great websites link to your page on their own, but in reality, you’ll often have to send an email asking if this is possible. You can also actively reach out to websites to ask if you can create some content for them; then, in the content you create for another website, you can link back to your own site. It’s quite a bit of work, but if Google sees that other reputable sites consider your website good enough to link to, you’re well on your way to a high ranking!
So is this the big secret?
Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it? These are the most important things to keep in mind. It’s a fairly brief overview, so there’s a bit more to it, but if you apply all the points mentioned here, you’re already well on your way! But what exactly is the secret? What is secret is exactly how the ranking works. What percentage of the score comes from the image name? How often exactly does a keyword need to appear in a text? The specific numbers aren’t published, but there are tons of programs and other tools that seem to be very close to the mark. What doesn’t help is that Google often seems to adjust these specific numbers. However, if you at least know what the search engine considers important and make sure you’re posting truly great content, you can claim the top spot in the search results using the tips on this page! We’d love to help you with this, so if you have any questions or want to outsource your SEA and SEO, please contact us!
