Productive and result-driven internet marketing is a critical element to the success and longevity of your business in this digitally driven age. Assuring your website content is composed of high-quality and SEO friendly copy is crucial to your business achieving high page rankings on Google and other search engines.
When your website garners high rankings on various search engines, it also tends to accumulate more traffic and links via social media, such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.
How frequently do you use the term, “Google it”? Likely, very often! Google has become a dominant player in the way that people use the internet today. Google’s ability to drive their bottom line is dependent upon their search engine providing users with easily accessible and relevant links to the information that they are seeking. For that reason, Google has developed sophisticated algorithms designed to assess the quality of web page content.
It’s important that your online marketing firm makes sure your website has high-quality content and the right search engine optimization (SEO) to deliver powerful and impactful results.
How Quality of Content is Assessed by Google
Google analyses the content of websites as well as the behaviour of those using their search engine to determine page rankings within its system. Following are some of the algorithms that highlight the relevant information that Google assesses.
Algorithmic Page Content Assessment
Any textual content on a webpage is directly assessed for quality through computer analysis. The content needs to be in a form that can be processed algorithmically. Text on standard web pages fits this bill, however, text presented in images or video most likely does not. Algorithmic assessment initially seeks answers to questions like:
- What search phrases are this website relevant to? (Creation of content needs to be guided by an appropriate keyword research strategy.)
- How relevant is the webpage to the search phrases used by those seeking information?
- Is the content of the website well written? (It can be assumed that copy is assessed utilising grammar checkers, spell checkers and reading age-appropriate scales since computers are readily able to perform such tasks)
- Are other words on the page related to the users search phrases?
- Is the website content original?
- Are there detectable signs of SEO being used as a means of manipulating search engines (e.g. blatant keyword stuffing)?
If a page passes the initial Google analysis, Google will include it in its search results for relevant search phrases. During the early stages of your website’s development, page rankings may not be high, but if high-quality content is provided on the pages, over time your website will attain greater prominence in the SERPs (search engine results pages), well-qualified site traffic, more lead generation and a greater traffic to sale conversion rate.
Human Page Content Assessment
While a search engine algorithm may be incredibly sophisticated in analysing text, it is not really able to comprehend how well a webpage conveys information to a human reader. The meaning of graphical information in particular remains outside the scope of algorithmic assessment. When human beings view a webpage, they will consciously or unconsciously assess its quality, asking themselves such things as:
- Does the page appear to provide me with the information that I’m looking for?
- Is the information on the webpage easy for me to understand?
- Is the content on the website engaging enough for me?
- Does the website elicit positive feelings in me?
Although computer analysis and algorithms aren’t able to find out exactly what each person thinks or feels about a web page, some clues are available through the analysis of the behaviour of web users.
Behavioural Assessment
Search engines can garner data to help them decide how compelling a website is to the users. Important clues are obtainable through addressing the following questions:
- How long do visitors stay engaged with a particular website or webpage?
- How many inbound links have accumulated for this webpage over a certain period of time?
- Are there signals of interest on social media pages such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc., that demonstrate strong user identification with the website?
- Does the website receive repeat visits?
In order to effectively market a website and business on the internet, it’s critical to understand how Google assesses the content of a page and how those assessments affect your page ranking in search engines.
For high-performance in the SERPs, a website will benefit substantially if it has unique and meaningful copy that meets the analytical algorithms set by Google. SEO is very much about ensuring a site has the high-quality content necessary for a website’s success.