Digging into the anatomy of a Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is always a topic worth learning if you are marketing for a small business. There are a lot of internet marketers who don’t have any clue on how Google displays the results when you put your key in the words that you are looking for in the Google search box. Here are some basic concepts that are behind this amazing search engine’s operational methods. And by learning more about SERPs, you will get an idea on how you can increase rank in Google searches.
First and foremost, you need to know that when you want to search about a specific topic on Google, you are actually doing a search on Google’s own database. This is in contrast to anyone’s belief that they are searching in an actual web. Google has spiders and crawlers that “crawl” the web and indexes websites in Google’s database. So, if your page is indexed by Google, you can expect that once someone keys in words related to your site, you will definitely appear in the Google search result and then the magic happens.
However, this is also where the real game begins. Keep in mind that even if your site is indexed by Google’s crawlers and spiders, it does not imply that you will rank in its top results. If your keywords or keyword phrase is unique enough, then you can surely get yourself on SERP top list. However, with the competitiveness in keywords, it is going to be tough to pop on the SERP’s first page.
Here are some things that you should consider when working on your website search engine optimization.
a. Page Rank
This is the authority or relevancy score that is assigned to a website. This is in relation to numerous factors in its trademark algorithm. It is similar to a voting system, where when you get link from another site, Google assumes that the site has voted for you. Thus, the more links that you have, particularly unique and relevant links, the higher your Page Rank will be. But keep in mind that each vote is not alike. Therefore, link quality is important.
b. Inbound Links
These are the links that you get from other webmasters. The best way to get inbound links is by creating great content that others will want to link to. Beware of signing up with link building companies that add you to hundreds of pages, or link farms. Google may consider it as spamming and give you negative points.
c. Keyword frequency
This simply means that number a certain keyword in used in a particular article or in a certain page. It is good practice to have one main keyword and maybe 2 or 3 secondary keywords.
d. Keyword Location
It is important to keep the adjacent words near the keyword relevant or related to the repeated keywords. Google is critical about this aspect. They make sure that the keyword and the adjacent words actually make sense.
e. Trust Rank
A lot of websites are formed each day yet fail to sustain their value. Google search gives great value to websites that are more established and are present for quite some time, since they have a trust rank. This is built slowly over a span of time. This only goes to show just how stable and consistent you are with your webpage and information.
So where do you show up in a SERP for your main keyword? How can you improve?