Understanding and mastering how Google prioritizes the order of content is an increasingly difficult task, given the number of variables taken into consideration and the frequent changes in the algorithms that index all public pages available on the internet.
You must already know that in the face of so many mutations, the best thing to do is to create genuine content thinking exactly how your user searches for it, seeking to create authority on the subject by producing a considerable volume of texts that create a chain of links and also generate, in the long term, several external links pointing to your site purely because you are good at a certain topic.
It is also true that following Google’s best practices guide is the main principle that you should take into account when fighting to achieve better positions in the search engine. However, there are many “tricks” and “rules” in the market that end up becoming common sense and that often no longer make sense. In addition, there are some tools and actions that you can learn to ensure that you are up to date with the latest best practices.
1. Searcher intent trumps keyword
Put yourself in the shoes of the person searching for something. How would you search? What words or phrases would you use to find answers faster? It may sound cliche, but creating content based solely on isolated keywords is a huge mistake.
Let’s take the Mona Lisa painting as an example. When someone searches for this term, they are usually looking for questions like “Who painted the Mona Lisa?”,Because it fits the user’s search query, content that responds to these queries is far more likely to rank first.
Online tools like Ubersuggest, Google Trends, and even Google Adwords can provide insights into the ways and intentions with which people search for certain topics. Always put the searcher’s intent ahead of the keyword and its repetitions and you’ll have a better chance.
2. Use and abuse related themes and keywords
Raw keywords and simple repetition rules don’t cut it in 2017. But writing about related topics does. Google rewards those pages that create phrases and content that create semantic, logical and lexical connectivity to the terms searched by users.
In this way, it evaluates content that is relevant, includes critical answers and provides accurate and credible information. This happens mainly when content answers a direct question, causing Google to create a snippet before all search results. In many cases, the snippet may show content that was not even the first search result, but is accurate in answering a question correctly for Google and searchers.
Another great way to prevail above your competitors here is to have many links related to the topic within your content page. The more links to other pages that have exactly related terms, the greater the chance that Google will interpret that you are an authority on the subject, as you are making the user navigate to the topic of interest.
3. Don’t believe that links beat content
A few years ago, it was common to think that creating a bunch of links with anchor text would make even the most irrelevant and weak page in the world look good to search engines. Today, the path is different. The content of the links is more important than creating the links themselves.
If you already have a good ranking and want to improve your position, you need to consider formatting your text as the user writes and searches.
4. Don’t get stuck on repetition rules
You’ve heard this from multiple sources and tools, from free to paid, that you need to repeat the keyword x times every so many words or use it x times in the text. It’s been standard since the beginning of digital times. Not to mention how many times they say it should appear in images, tags, meta descriptions and the need to bold or even hashtags…
Use simple rules of good practice, but don’t fall for this fairy tale. You need to worry about a few details:
- The main keyword must be in the permanent URL of the page
- Have a permanent URL that, excluding the website address, is less than 75 characters long
- Have a meta description with less than 156 characters (to appear in the search engine)
There’s no need to repeat your main keyword hundreds of times in your text if there’s no real need. Remember that Google cares more about the amount of time users spend interacting with your content. If they go back to the search results too quickly, it’s a sign that they didn’t like the experience they had with you and this will make you drop in the search results.
Worrying about the keyword is still essential, but again we urge you to think about the user and reflect on the topic you are writing organically to please whoever will read it instead of writing a text for a robot.
5. Authority is also a new attribute for relevance
Writing several times about a certain topic and obtaining good metrics such as average user browsing time and many backlinks over time starts to transform your domain into authority and this is increasingly relevant for Google.
For example, if a specific page talks about cell phones with lots of truthful news about the devices, every time it publishes something about a new release it will have more priority over pages that don’t usually talk about the topic. Ranking certain keywords according to your domain is essential. You build reputation.
To do this, you need to associate your brand or domain with the topic, whether online or offline. They need to become synonymous with what you are communicating and so it can take time to gain the necessary authority. The secret, if there is one, is to persist and create good content that pleases visitors to that topic. Of course, there are several strategies, tactics and actions that you can use to produce good content, but that is a topic for another text 😉
