Over the past several years Google has rolled out several updates to their algorithms. These updates have been good quality updates that have punished spammy websites as well as helped boost quality websites. So what SEO strategies are good and still working? We provide several good tips that will help you climb the rankings in Google Search.
Focused Quality Content
Now more than ever Google is looking for authority websites within a niche. This doesn’t mean the website with the most links. This means the website with the best content written by expert trustworthy authors. SEO is much more than just links these days.
Stuart McHenry who runs McKremie an SEO Company in California explains, “This past year Google has made major updates to how they rank websites. Google now looks to rank content that is written by experts and leaders in their industry.”
E-A-T – Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthy
In the most recently updated quality rater’s guidelines Google mentions how important that a website must have good E-A-T which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthy. Content written by anonymous authors or people with bad reputation doesn’t cut it anymore. This is especially true when it comes to finance and health websites.
If you search for something related to those industries Google wants to provide quality content that gives accurate information. Imagine how bad your life could be if you take advice from a website found in the top of the search results for a health related search and the content was bad and provided misinformation. Google has recognized this and now adjusted their algorithms for this.
Knowing this you can do a few things to help your website ranking better. You can measure trustworthy by the amount of real reviews you have on websites like Yelp, and Google. The more quality good reviews you have the more trustworthy the business. Some may also say having your company website listed on the Better Business Breuer is another trustworthy signal. You can also get more authority by getting high quality websites to link to you. These include industry leading blogs, news websites, and other related authority websites.
Quality Backlinks
Links still matter more than ever these days. But not every link is created equal. Gone are the days of cheap links or blog networks. Now if you want your website to rank you need to have quality relevant backlinks to boost your SEO efforts.
The best place to look for quality blogs and websites is in Google searches. Try searching for “keyword + blog” or “keyword + news” to find some websites. Some of the things you want to look for are:
- Does the website receive actual traffic from Google?
- Does the website have quality content?
- Does the website appear to be trustworthy?
Business Listings for Local SEO
One of the main factors for local SEO are business listing. Google looks at the consistency of NAP which stands for Name, Address, and Phone. Are you listing on local directories? If so ensure your NAP is correct across the board. Often times over the year’s businesses move or change their phone numbers. Having inconsistent NAP helps defeat your efforts.
Google and other search engines have done a better job of finding and rewarding quality websites these days. If you want your company website to rank using quality SEO there is no more cutting corners.