The Basics on Google Local Algorithm

Published on: 15 August 2017 Last Updated on: 16 August 2019

Being at the top of Google search results page has been one of the goals of various businesses ever since the advent of the search engine giant. Landing the top ranking spot can help draw traffic to your page and increase the effectiveness of your website.

Many have tried to breakdown the factors that affect Google ranking and a study in 2016 has made an analysis of the various factors that Google use in its rankings. The study determined which of the different factors correlate either positively or negatively with local rankings in the Google search results page. This study is very helpful in guiding businesses when prioritizing for their local SEO plans.

The Factors that Affect Google Rankings

1. Website

The use of keywords and the number of words on a page actually have a huge impact on the rankings. Location pages with a lot of information written have a tendency to fare better than those with less content. Put quality information on your website on different broad topics to help draw traffic towards your site. Crafting a quality small business website design is crucial from the start and best to hire a professional.

2. Links

Backlinks affect your local rankings. In fact, it has the most positive correlation with good rankings. The infamous Toolbar PageRank is no longer a current tool but there are many other tools similar to the toolbar that can gauge the quality of a site. The study has shown that sites with older links are doing better than the newer ones.

3. Google My Business

Having good reviews and verified information about your business, as well as photos of your location and products, all contributed to stronger rankings. It can be due to the reliable information that these sites have attracted more interaction with the searchers. Therefore, make sure that in every channel you have, you put in their the basic information about your business. Lastly, revamp your Google My Business pages because it also helps immensely in supplying information.

4. Citations

One of the surprising findings of the study is that citations did not seem to correlate with positive local rankings. However, the researchers have pointed out that citations do help if the business or website is at its foundation stage. But once the groundwork has been laid down and all the citations have been made, further citing will not make any difference.

5. Surprises

The study had a huge surprise when the researchers found out that the “City & State” information in the Google My Business page does not have any correlation with positive ranking. Therefore, geotargeting should not be all the craze. Keywords, however, do help.

Going Forward With Google & amp; The Search Engines

Knowing what are the factors when Google ranks pages and which factor to prioritize will help you be more efficient and effective. In sum, if you are a new player in the business, lay down your citations as fast and as effectively as you can and then move on to getting backlinks, especially in competitive markets.

Having your business have a solid SEO mechanism will help you entice a larger audience, promote your products effectively, and open your business to new opportunities.

Read also:

Avoid These 5 Mistakes Before Starting An SEO

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Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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Importance of Web Push Notifications in Search Engine Optimization

If you are concerned about getting your website ranked high up in search engine results, you will need to pay special attention towards the web push notifications. It has been identified as one of the proven methods available for you to secure higher positions in the search engine rankings. Why search engines pay attention to web push notifications as a ranking parameter? First of all, you must understand why all the leading search engines such as Google and Yahoo have started paying attention to web push notifications as a ranking parameter. Every single business that exists out there in the world is equipped with their loyal customer bases. Your business will have such a customer base as well. Those customers will visit your website on a regular basis to see what you have got for sale. Those customers are concerned about what your brand has got to offer. This ensures repeated traffic to your website. When you are having a bigger customer base, you will be able to end up with better conversions as well. You can allow web push notifications to provide the latest updates to your customer base. Then you can increase their chances of coming to your website. This can be considered as the main reason why search engines tend to pay special attention to web push notifications. Below mentioned are a few examples, which indicate how web push notifications are capable of providing tremendous assistance to you with increasing your rankings on search engines. 1. They can assist you to create a marketing list: If you are looking for a convenient method to create a marketing list, web push notifications will be one of the greatest options available to consider. It is an extremely easy task for the people to sign up to receive web push notifications. They just need to allow or block, once they are prompted with the notification. As a result, any business owner can instantly transform a visitor into a subscriber of the website. The web push notifications are effective and impressive when compared to landing pages and marketing emails. People in today’s world rarely tend to go ahead and complete the lead generation forms on the landing pages and emails that they receive. By taking a look at the conversion rates, you will be able to get a better understanding of the above-mentioned fact. However, it is possible to engage in an effective and efficient marketing campaign. This has impressed the search engines as well. 2. They can help you to drive repetitive traffic: Another obvious benefit associated with web push notifications is that they are in a position to drive repetitive traffic towards your website. You just need to send out a push notification when there is an update. Then your loyal customer base would come to your website in order to see what the update is all about. With this, you can easily increase the traffic that you are getting on the website. The best thing about web push notifications is that it can help you to drive relevant traffic towards the website. Therefore, every single visitor that comes into your website will be in a position to contribute towards your business at the end of the day. This can be considered as another great reason available for the search engines to provide more attention towards your website when determining the search engine rankings. 3. They can increase your chances of growth in the future: If your business becomes successful in creating a loyal customer base, you will be able to increase your chances of growth in the future as well. That’s because the loyal customers come back to your website on a regular basis and purchase the products or services that you offer. This can add tremendous value to your SEO strategy as well. When your web traffic is increasing, many other important parameters that define your SEO strategy will be impacted. Pageviews, average session duration and bounce rates are perfect examples of such parameters. From one of the recently conducted experiments, it has been identified that the push notifications are linked to the highest click-through rates. In other words, the click-through rates associated with web push notifications is in between 12% and 21% on average. This is obviously better than email marketing campaigns, where the click-through rates are below 5%. Due to this reason, search engines tend to pay special attention to the availability of web push notifications on your website. 4. They appear directly on any device: When you go ahead with a traditional email marketing campaign, your customers will need to open their mailboxes to see what you have sent. Due to this reason, you will be able to get the results of your email marketing campaigns after a couple of days of sending out the emails. This hassle can be eliminated effectively with the assistance of web push notifications. That’s because the web push notifications that you send out will be displayed instantly on any device. For example, the Chrome push notification is displayed in the bottom right-hand corner of the computer display. They are instantly displayed on mobile devices as well. Hence, your chances of getting quick results from the web push notifications are extremely high. Due to this reason, search engines tend to give more priority towards the push notifications. 5. They can reach a wider audience: You must also keep in mind that the web push notifications are in a position to reach a wider audience. All the major browsers that you can find out there on the internet, such as Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome support push notifications. Therefore, you will find it as an easy task to spread your message to a bigger audience with minimum effort. Search engines have identified this as a powerful factor and give more priority towards your web rankings. Read Also: Things to consider while doing SEO. Why SEO is still the digital channel with the highest ROI.

5 Tips For Creating Content To Help Move The SEO Needle

Using search engine optimization to increase the visibility of your online content isn’t new. But there are businesses out there that don’t do it effectively. They’re stuffing keywords in every nook and cranny of an article, hoping Google will be kind with its ranking. SEO involves much more than sticking a particular word or phrase in a blog post or landing page, though. It’s about connecting with potential customers using content that’s relevant to solving their problems. Your SEO efforts should be centered around what your buyers’ needs are and how to meet those needs as effectively as possible. Therefore your content creation criteria should go beyond simply writing something that addresses a problem. Your content should be accessible, informed by experts, and provide a positive experience to the reader. The opportunity to improve conversions is greater for marketers who keep the user at the center of their strategy. 1. Show Your Authority Marketers’ old habit of stuffing keywords in their content willy-nilly is no longer effective for achieving higher rankings. Search engines like Google give higher priority to sites that have authority on a given subject. Expert-driven articles are much more likely to lure readers to your site. Developing content pillars is a great way to show authority and build trust with potential buyers. A content pillar strategy involves creating a robust, long-form page centered around one topic. From there you can build out sub-topics related to the main one. A content pillar does contain numerous keywords that can boost SEO ranking, but it employs them in a natural, reader-friendly way. At the same time, because the material is so comprehensive around one main subject, it builds authority. Content pillar pages not only educate the reader, but they foster trust and keep users engaged. 2. Do Your Research You might be the authority on a given subject, but you’ll lose sales if you don’t judiciously use keywords that match your customers’ search intent. You don’t want to do keyword stuff, but you do want to research and use keywords related to your expertise. For example, if you run a coffee shop, naturally your content uses the word coffee. But you’ll want to consider long-tail keywords your customers might use such as “single estate coffee” or “fair trade coffee.” Think about what your customers would want related to all things coffee and what your business actually sells. There are numerous tools you can use to do keyword research, enabling you to find words and phrases related to your main topic. Discovering how certain words and phrases relate to your region and the season can help you develop more user-friendly content. Another tactic related to your research is digging into what keywords your competitors are using. Staying on top of the most recent trends is helpful for crafting up-to-the-minute content, like what you’d find on social media. 3. Create Accessible Content Crafting thought leadership articles is a great way to utilize high-intent keywords and show authority. When your content is difficult to read, however, potential buyers are likely to leave your site quickly. Bulky paragraphs without images can be a major turnoff to readers. Make sure to break up your content using lists, bullets, and relevant visuals. As a good rule of thumb, use one image for every 300 words in a blog. SEO rankings aren’t just about the words on the page. Your content needs to be accessible in terms of how your site loads. If it takes too long for your site to load, expect readers to abandon it. Google suggests your site should take less than a half-second to load for top SEO performance. It should load just as quickly on mobile as well. 4. Develop Visual Content As noted, a blog post that includes images relevant to the topic is much more appealing to the reader. What’s just as effective — maybe more so — is short-form video. With the boom of social sites like TikTok, short videos are proving to have strong ROI. Consider producing short videos of 60 or fewer seconds and sharing them on social media using keywords. Be sure your videos are informative and engaging. Videos aren’t the only form of visual content that can move the needle. Strong infographics that tell a story and keep readers engaged can make a big impact. The technical components of visual aids like images or videos are just as important for SEO. Make sure meta tags for all visuals include keywords. That image of a coffee cup should be tagged “dark roast coffee” instead of “file123.jpg.” 5. Optimize Current Content Making use of content that already exists is an underappreciated way to increase your SEO ranking. After all, you worked hard to write those blog posts. Why not optimize and repurpose them? Refreshing old content can save time and provide new opportunities to reach potential customers. For older blogs and articles, consider their continued relevance. If the messaging is still appropriate, update it with high–search intent keywords. Remove dates from both the content and URL to make them evergreen. Update meta tags on all images. Mix it up by turning blogs into a short-form video, if that’s more appealing to your buyers. Maintaining a Customer Focus Strong content is essential to any marketing strategy. As with any part of your business, keeping your customer as the core focus is important to improving SEO. Using the keywords readers are searching for is imperative, but it’s not the whole story. Prioritizing the user experience by producing content that’s accessible, builds authority, and creates trust is what will move the SEO needle. Read Also: How To Monitor The SEO Health Of Your Website The Art Of Creating Viral Content On TikTok For Marketing Apps 4 points to consider when creating a Great Content Marketing Strategy

A Complete Online Guide to Boosting Your Website Traffic in 2020

As soon as New Year's Eve is over, we all start scrambling to improve this or that, and owners of web-based businesses are no different. The web is flooded with entrepreneurs working to boost their web traffic in the New Year. After all, any good businessperson knows that the majority of success for web-based businesses begins with getting people to your site. If you want to implement an easy plan to boost your web traffic in 2019, just follow the steps outlined below. A Complete Online Guide to Boosting Your Website Traffic in 2020: 1. SEO: To drive traffic to your page, you’ll want to begin with SEO tactics. There are some great companies out there who can provide you with professional SEO services if you don’t want to do it on your own. You’ll want to implement these SEO tactics on each of your web pages to get optimal visitors to your website and improve your ranking in search engines. Separate SEO for every single page of your site is the best way to go about this. You should also spend a bit of time writing concise meta descriptions to appear under your URL descriptions in search engines. This little step can make all the difference. 2. Listings: Another way to easily drive visitors to your pages is to improve your listings across the web. Peruse the internet and sites relating to your industry for directory listings, contact pages, and relevant links, and make sure you’ve linked to them. Check your pages for dead links often, and make sure all links are working properly. Keep any directories on your site easy to find, polished and relevant. 3. Social Media: Even in 2019, so many online companies think a social media presence is unnecessary. Unfortunately, foregoing any kind of social media interaction can really harm your business. It’s a matter of finding the social media platform that’s right for you – whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or something else entirely, find the social media platform that drives viewers to your business and makes those sales. Once you’ve got an account, start those promotions, post pictures, put up polls, and get those customers talking and engaging. Do it yourself or hire a social media whiz, but be sure to interact with your customers via these platforms to keep their interest, stay relevant, and drive customers to your site. It’s 2019 and let’s face it: most folks are addicted to some form of social media. Why wouldn’t you get in on that? If you operate an app, be sure to update links there often, too, and make sure your website is optimized for mobile. Not everyone, however, wants to use an app, and you never know, someone might be scrolling through your website on their phone, cursing because it isn't translating well. This also falls under the category of website speed, because when optimizing for mobile devices loading speed is very important. Start from fundamentals here by choosing a fast provider, then optimize your code, images, and content. Spend the time and money on making your site, app, and social media picture perfect. It's worth every penny. 3. Email Marketing: If you’re dead-set against social media, at the very least, you should have an email marketing campaign (and even if you’re totally into social media, this is still a good idea). Have your customers “opt-in” when visiting your site, offering them subscriptions to your blog or newsletter, or special promotions or deals. You’ll find that most of them are interested! Then you’ve got a ready-made list of email addresses, connected to real, live customers who will come back and become repeat customers. Avoid spamming them, of course – save the email marketing content for the really good stuff. It’s also a good idea to have a specific, set email address only for marketing, and a separate one for things like customer service, orders, etc. Having an organized email is just good business. 5. Guest-Starring: A lot of successful online entrepreneurs – whether it’s authors, business owners, musicians, marketing execs, or “social media influencers”, have learned that crossing over to other forums can increase their viewership and give them great success. Have a friend who runs a similar business? Someone who blogs about the products you sell? A repeat customer who has a podcast? Find common ground with someone who can give you a platform, or offer them a platform in return. Guest blog for someone, have someone guest blog for you or participate in a cross-promotion. The sky is the limit! Pairing up with someone can mean bigger viewership and success for BOTH of you! 6. Engage: Don’t neglect a really important part of web-business – engaging with the customer. Whether it’s responding to social media tags, reading blog comments, answering customer service emails, or frequently updating your blog, you want to make yourself available to your web traffic. They need to see that you’re present and engaging with the audience. A constant presence reminds the customer that you’re there, that they wanted to visit your site to make a purchase or look at the promotion. They come to see you as a friend, and your site might just become a frequent stop on their day-to-day web activity. 7. Analyze Your Data: Every forum from Facebook to Wordpress offers its users data; a breakdown of viewership, clicks, sales, and more. Naturally, if you run a website, you’ve seen lots of this information. Unfortunately, not enough entrepreneurs take the time to truly analyze website data, and you should. It’s a treasure trove of information, providing you with clues on how to increase your viewership. Through analytics, you can track everything from the age and gender demographics of the people who visit your site, their location, what they click on, what they buy, and more. Taking the time to track this data can help you decipher what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s bringing people back. Get the Boost: There are lots more things you can do to boost traffic to your page in 2019, but if you start with these easy, simple steps, you’ll find your traffic increase with almost no effort at all. These simple, quick measures can put your web traffic into the stratosphere and make 2019 your best business year yet. Read Also: Top Utility Tools You Need For Your Website Tips On Building Your Resume For A Website Design Company

The Basics on Google Local Algorithm

The Factors that Affect Google Rankings

1. Website

2. Links

3. Google My Business

4. Citations

5. Surprises

Going Forward With Google & amp; The Search Engines

Should You Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?

Get A Return On Investment With Your SEO

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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Importance of Web Push Notifications in Search Engine Optimization

5 Tips For Creating Content To Help Move The SEO Needle

A Complete Online Guide to Boosting Your Website Traffic in 2020

The Basics on Google Local Algorithm

The Factors that Affect Google Rankings

1. Website

2. Links

3. Google My Business

4. Citations

5. Surprises

Going Forward With Google & amp; The Search Engines

Share this Article

Should You Hire a Digital Marketing Agency?

Get A Return On Investment With Your SEO

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

Related