Put simply, SEO – or search engine optimisation – refers to all those techniques and strategies we use to improve our website’s visibility on search engine results pages. In this post we’ll take a broad, “big picture” look at SEO and how search engines rank web pages for any given search queery.
A quick look at how search results pages are produced.
Before we look at how engines rank pages, let’s take a quick look at how results pages are produced. Search engine results pages – or SERPS for short – are those pages we see after searching for something on Google, Bing or the search engine of your choice. For this post we’ll refer mostly to Google SERPS.
Most Google SERP pages are made up of two to three sections. They are an Ads section, a local business results section (often called “local pack” results) and ordinary or “organic” results. SEO deals with that last section – the organic results. But let’s first take a quick look at those other two sections.
Google Ads Results
When a google search relates to a product or service you will almost always see Google Ads at the top of the page, as well as at the bottom. The listings are generated from Google’s Ads platform. The Ads platform allows paying advertisers to have their website shown in this position.
Google My Business, or “Local Pack” Results
When a google search relates to a product or service available in a particular location, Google will often show local business listings. These results are generated by businesses who are part of Google’s My Business platform. Google My Business allows local businesses to setup an acount which includes information about their business – contact details, products and services, updates and more.
If you search on Google for “plumber coffs habour” you’ll most likely see both Google Ads and Google My Business results at the top of the page.
Organic Search Results
The next section is the section we’ll be discussing in more detail today – the organic results. The are the listings which occur naturally for your search query. So how do you get your website to show up here? Welcome to the wonderful world of SEO!
How does Google decide which websites show up organically?
If anyone knew the complete answer to that, they’d likely be quite wealthy indeed! The truth is that only Google knows exactly how their search engine algorithm.
What we do know is that search engines want to show the ‘best results’ higher in the listings. So what makes a better result. In a nutshell, search engines want to show the most relevant, authorative pages higher in the SERPS. So to have your website shown in one of the highest positions, you need to let search engines knows that your page fits the bill. Let’s have a look at how you do that.
Authority, Relevance and Search Engine Optimisation
Broadly, search engines use relevance and authority measures to rank your website against any given search query.
Matt Angel is a search marketer with 15 years industry experience, and now provides SEO services in Coffs Harbour, on the NSW Mid North Coast. He describes relevancy as “a measure of how closely the content of any given web page is likely to match a user’s search intent. A search for pink widgets is unlikely to result in a page all about blue widgets being shown in search results. A search for plumbers in Coffs Harbour won’t show web pages for plumbers in Bendigo. A search for marathon training won’t show results for 100m sprint training.”
Authority is a measure the reliability, or trustworthiness of any given web page.
“Search engines want to know that the pages they’re showing in search results include reputable content that will actually be useful to people,” Matt says. A search for marathon training is more likely to show established, trustworthy web pages above web pages for which engines are unable to determine the reliability.
How is relevancy and authority measured?
Now that we know what search engines are looking for as broad indicators of how a web page should be ranked for any given search query, let’s take a look at how they measure this.
Relevancy and On Page SEO
Relevancy is established by looking at the page itself. Search engines will crawl and hopefully index your web pages. In doing so they use the content and images on your page to get a sense of what your web page is about. There are a range of measures – some straightforward and others more complex and technical – that you can to make it as clear as possible to search engines what your web page is about. This is known as on-page SEO.
Authority and Off Page SEO
Authority is established by looking at things like how long the website has been around, as well as how many other websites link to your website or web pages. You might think of these links as ‘votes of confidence’ in your website. Generally, when people link to content on the web, it’s because they found that content useful or beneficial in some way.
Not all links are treated equally however. When search engines began using external links to establish authority, marketers quickly began getting as many links to their website as possible. And would use any method to do this. Search engines quickly realised that results were being manipulated this way and moved to end this practice. Today, only natural links from other sites with established authority will have any benefit for your web pages. And in fact unnatural, paid links will likely do your ranking significantly more harm than good.
Similarly, links from web pages which are related – or relevant to – the content of your web page will be more useful than links from irrelevant pages. For example, links from a building supplies company websites will be more useful to a builder’s website than links from a hairdresser’s website.
The strategies used to build a natural, authentic link profile is known as off-page SEO.
Begin Search Optimisation By Improving Relevancy
The first step on your SEO journey begins with looking at your own website, and asking yourself how relevant it is for the search terms people use to find your products and services. At this stage, it’s useful to engage the services of a professional search marketer who can help analyse your website from a search engine point of view.
