Is it possible to crack the Google search algorithm and achieve SEO success?
Google Search has been around for over three decades, and for almost that long people have been trying to crack the Google Search algorithm. The reason why is not hard to deduce, Google processes over 3.5 billion searches per day, meaning a listing on the coveted "first page of google" for your website is marketing gold. If you could somehow crack the Google code, you could guarantee a high search ranking for your site, sit back and watch the dollars stream in!
There is a lot of misinformation, confusion, conspiracy theories and in the worst cases some downright deception when it comes to how Google search works; let's start our investigation by following the money!
Google search is free to use. Google makes money from the service by running ads (called "sponsored listings"). Fundamentally it really is not a lot different to the way newspaper publishing worked a hundred years ago - newspapers published fresh, relevant content that people wanted to read, and advertisers paid for a listing.
So Google's intent is to show relevant content to searchers. The more relevant the content is to the searcher, the more searches, the more people click on the ads, the more money Google makes. That's really it!
So how to reach your audience through Google search? Understand what they are looking for and have up to date, well written, recognized and relevant content.
There is no code to crack, just good old fashioned research, analysis, writing and refining.
At a high level, when you enter a search term, Google computers search through their vast database of websites and run various calculations to determine in which order results should be presented. From the number one result which will appear at the top of the page (sometimes below sponsored listings) right through to the last result, which may appear hundreds or even thousands of pages later in the results.
How does Google determine the most relevant results? This is not a secret: you can read Google's own information on this at Google Search Central.
Below is my summary of the factors that make up a high rank. Google doesn't provide a high level listing in this way, so its important to remember that any summary like this will be subjective.
To understand these points better, let's do a search! Let's say I am planning an overseas trip, a trip to Italy. I have always been fascinated by trains, so I enter "Italy rail trip"...
At the top of the page are sponsored listings - the advertisements we were talking about earlier. I'm just researching at this stage, so I go to the first non-paid (also known as "organic") listing, a Eurail page
There were over 98 million results for this search term, why did this one appear at the top? Lets break it down using our four categories:
Running the site through our framework, it begins to come clear why this page holds the number one organic ranking for our search term.
Of course you are not interested in how a travel page ranks, you want to booost the rankings of your website!
Your first port of call is number one on the list. Relevance. Of course its hard to know if your page is relevant if you don't know what people are searching for when it comes to your web offering. Spend some time reflecting on the need you are fulfilling. You may want to consider engaging an SEO professional at this stage, as distilling user intent into search phrases takes expertise and experience
With user intent established, you need to set about crafting a page that answers user's questions. Avoid the temptation to bring in content that is not relevant or to use jargon or hyperbole. Your first goal is to inform the user - before you can convert you need to attract! A good copy-writer can be worth their weight in gold at this point.
Use your networks to establish links back to your page. Other link building strategies include contributing to journals in your area of expertise and contributing to forum discussions. Again there are link building specialist companies that you can engage.
AI is of course a hot topic right now, and AI and search may be a future blog topic. Time will tell exactly how AI changes search, however the four principles laid out here go beyond a specific technology. Technology changes, humans not so much. We want to find out more about the world around us.
Good quality, well presented, up-to-date and relevant information is unlikely to go out of fashion!