For the past two decades, Google has closely guarded the secret formula by which websites are searched, categorized and served up to internet users looking for information. Through that time, organizations understandably have tried to crack the Google search ranking code to capitalize on greater exposure. The name of the game became search engine optimization (SEO).
If your organization is still trying to crack the code, stop. SEO hasn’t become unimportant. Instead, the search engine itself has become so intuitive that SEO is no longer a “thing” unto itself. Today’s SEO can be boiled down to subcategories under proper site construction and solid content marketing. With perhaps one small exception, that’s it.
Great content that’s relevant for your audience, a structured and well-organized website, along with a few technical best practices comprise the best SEO recipe in 2022.
How Web Search Grew Up
Since the mid-1990s, organizations have employed tricks and tips to gain exposure and get clicks via search engines. For many years, it worked. Young search engines, including Google in its infancy, did not have the algorithms needed to distinguish a true, quality web resource from a site that was built to emulate a true, quality web resource.
Carefully placed keywords in the code of your site, along with numerous links to and from outside sources, could garner any organization an unnatural degree of visibility. Forward-thinking coders tried to encourage the machine to bubble their site to the top, or to trick the machine into bubbling their site to the top.
Today’s code can do that to some extent. In the short term, the same approach will probably boost your numbers. But in the medium and long term? Google’s search function is mostly untrickable. The search function improves by the day, reportedly using hundreds of factors to get a true sense of the best content available to present to searchers.
Yes, you can track and trick the system based on what we know about these factors. Some marketing companies still beg clients to have them open that can of worms. In 99% of cases, it’s not worth the time and money.
Since everything you need to do comes from either site quality or content creation, let’s take a look at the “SEO musts” for each.
Site Build Quality
To set the stage for great content, you’ve got to have a great canvas for that content. Call it the “Triple S” approach:
- Structure – Coding is fundamental. Your site does need the right keywords within its site code. Developers will talk about “tags” within the site, ensuring each page has the right tags and the right information within those tags. It’s also important that your site is structurally organized. Indicators are that Google will drop you in the rankings if your site has structural flaws, broken links, missing pages, or too much down time.
- Speed – How fast does your site load? Google has admitted for the past dozen years that page speed is a factor in search rankings. If your site is a half-second slower than that of your competitor, it could make a difference.
- Security – When you load your webpage, does it take you to an address that begins with “http://” or “https://?” Google has made clear it will prioritize secure pages.
Content Creation
With the site fundamentals established, it’s time to roll with great content. These rules for quality SEO dovetail with a solid B2B content marketing strategy:
Keep Pace With Your Industry
The answer to the question, “How much content do I need?” is going to rely on how often and how quickly others in your marketspace put out content. Google is smart enough to know that, for every search of an item you sell, you’re not going to be competing with every site in the world using the same words. If you sell custom screen-printed T-shirts, you’re not competing with every apparel outlet. Know your niche well and keep pace with (or stay ahead of) your competitors when it comes to content creation.
Blogs and even social media that are tied into your website can boost the reputation and relevance of your site in the eyes of Google.
Originality Counts
Google does pick up on copied, rewritten, and machine-generated content. The practice of using mimicked content is called “content spinning,” and it’s increasingly being detected. Copywriters can rejoice that thoughtful, human-created content counts for a lot here. As much as we love automated marketing, it’s not yet a great idea for website content creation from a search ranking perspective.
Words Matter
It used to be that you could pack keywords into certain code within your site. What’s still important are the words and phrases you use in relation to what’s being searched for. There are plenty of tools for selecting the right keywords and phrases, and it’s worth taking the time to sew these elements into your content naturally, and with regularity.
It’s also worth noting that you’re going to have a different type of SEO challenge with every type of product or service you’re marketing. A powerful, unique brand can be its own keyword. A niche product or service, such as “fabricated anchor bolts,” is relatively easy to plan around. But the more general your wording — “mortgage refinancing,” for example — the more thought is required to stand out.
Links Matter, Too – Both Good and Bad
Much of gaming the system came from establishing links to as many different sites as possible. Now, it’s better to have fewer, high-quality links than to have more links to questionable sources. For example, if traffic is coming to your site from an industry trade publication, your ranking will increase. But if a link to your site is found on a site meant to inflate links – often referred to as “link farms” – Google might actually knock you down in site rankings. In fact, Google has even gone so far as to count such links as a violation of its webmaster guidelines.
While the worlds of pay-per-click advertising and organic search results are often separate, buying pay-per-click advertisements also seem to have a positive, indirect impact on search rankings.
One Possible Exception
If one thing can be seen as strictly in the camp of SEO, it’s actually conversing with the search engines to ensure your site is properly recognized. Webmasters can go directly to Google to register their site and submit information. And if you revisit any aspect of your site or content creation, you can request that Google recrawl your site for search rankings.
Will Google find your site eventually? Sure. This extra step can’t hurt and could even speed things up, especially if your site is new.
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