A Perfectly Optimised Page – How Google Ranks Content

With Google’s algorithm constant changes last year, from Penguins to Hummingbirds, SEO experts and webmasters spend a lot of time wondering exactly just what animal they will bring out next.

Preparing yourself from an SEO perspective can be tricky. Pages and content need to be optimised to be crawled by robots, yet they must still be engaging to humans. Without a balanced mix of the two, you run the risk of uploading detrimental content.

As a leading search engine in the industry, it’s crucial to keep on Google’s good side and follow the rules – even if they do keep changing. So how do you keep your SEO strategy relevant on a day-to-day basis and ready for what Google may have in store for 2014? Below are a few factors to consider about how online content is ranked, and some tips to help you stay on track.

PageRank – Will It Ever Be Updated?

Google uses PageRank to qualify the importance of each web page by how many links your site has pointing back to it. Essentially, the links work as votes and raise credibility to showcase the content and your site as high-quality. Webpages with a higher PageRank will more likely appear at the top of Google’s search results, making them more trustworthy in both the search engine’s eyes and readers.

Since the middle of last year however, Google hasn’t updated the PageRank meter and there is still no clear idea when, or even if, it will be fixed. Whilst there is still value in the ranking meter, it shouldn’t be relied on or emphasised. Instead, a strong focus on driving traffic to your website should be a higher priority.

Rich Content is a Must

Good content is now about semantically relevant supporting keywords, not multiple mentions. The importance of appropriate and rich content is still a top priority for 2014, with Google using it as one its chief factors to rank a website.  It’s this rich content that makes a site worthy – from the search engine result position, and the humans that are reading and sharing it.

It’s no new trend that good content – content that people actually want to read – improves your chances of ranking better in Google. By creating quality content, there is a higher chance of other people linking back to it from their sites – ultimately this certifies a natural build of inbound links. This is what Google wants.

From an SEO perspective, high-quality content has two attributes – to supply a demand and be linkable. This second point is more common than people realise, so it’s important to make sure that your content isn’t only accessible after logging in and can be shared through social media networks or other through other sites.

For content creators, the key to Google’s algorithm changes lies in its guidelines:

• Use plain English. Write for real people, not just robots.
• Worthy content should be clear, concise and informative.
• Make your content readable by keeping links to natural and to a reasonable number.