How Does Search Engine Ranking Work?

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Again and again, we are asked how the search engine ranking actually comes about. Although we all use Google and other search engines on a daily basis, it still seems unclear how the search results are actually ranked. The good news: Even long-time SEO professionals don’t know for sure. Because of the order in which Google presents the results to us, 100s of criteria are decisive. And the search engine giant keeps many of them secret.

Search engine placement plays an essential role in the world of online marketing. The top third of the search results in Google is considered the most clickable. If you would like to check this, you can simply pay attention to where the focus is directed the next time you enter a search in Google.

How often do you actually click on the third, fourth, or even 15th page? It goes without saying that brands and companies want to appear at the top of the search engine results. But how does the search engine ranking actually come about? When you do a search, who decides the order in which results appear on Google?

300+ SEO parameters in a nutshell

The most important search engine in our hemisphere is probably Google. And most other search engines also work according to the same scheme. When calculating the order, and the ranking for the search results, the Google algorithm includes several 100 factors. Some of the most important Google ranking factors are:

  • Mobile capability of the website
  • Page loading speed
  • Topic content of the website content in relation to the user’s search query
  • User experience
  • Internal and external links
  • Technically neat page structure
  • Length of stay of users on the pages
  • Content quality
  • Content length
  • Regularly new content on the site
  • Number of clicks on a page
  • Bounce rate
  • Social signals

These are just a few criteria for the Google ranking. There are many more, some of which are not even known. Again and again, Google changes the weighting of the factors. The search engine giant countered the increasing use of smartphones for searches, for example, with the mobile-first strategy or voice search, which from then on also gained importance for the ranking in desktop searches.

If you take a closer look at the above factors, you will quickly see what they are all aimed at. Google is not about hosting a beauty pageant for the best websites. The search engine wants to provide the best results for every search query. It is intended to give users a sense of achievement when they have been able to find the content they were looking for. Factors such as the time spent by other users, the click rate, or the bounce rate give Google information about how other users rate the content offered in a search. How broadly a blog is dedicated to a topic and how many links come in from other sites is also an indication for the crawler of whether or not it is an expert who is providing important answers to the user’s questions.

Why is the Google ranking important for me and my website?

If you only use the search engine yourself as an end-user and look for information, products, and offers with it, the search engine placement is irrelevant. Because the search engine does the work anyway and creates the order for us. However, anyone who runs a company and wants to sell products or services over the Internet is dependent on clicks on the website. And they come about, among other things, via search engines.

Although the search engine basically lists all websites in the search index, provided they do not grossly violate certain rules, your own website often only appears way down on the fifth, twelfth or 17th page, if not further down. There are hardly any clicks on these pages. Because most users only see the results on the first few pages. Therefore, the following applies: The higher my website achieves a Google position, the more clicks I get = more potential customers on the website = more sales potential.

And best of all: These clicks are generated without running costs like Google Ads or Facebook Ads.

Once a website has achieved a good page rank, it is difficult to get rid of it. The success of content marketing is therefore sustainable. A blog post that is created once and describes a specific topic, provides an answer to a question from the target group, and can sometimes bring visitors to the website who place orders there for many years.

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How to improve search engine ranking?

It becomes clear that those who want to be seen can hardly avoid SEO (search engine optimization). The search engine marketing sector revolves around improving the search engine ranking of websites. The aim of a company is to appear as high as possible in the results of Google search queries for relevant search terms (keywords). But how does that work?

An improved search engine position can be achieved by optimizing the criteria that are important for the ranking. On the one hand, this includes technical factors such as a clear page structure and short loading times. On the other hand, great importance is attached to the content. Texts, but also images and videos on the website play a major role. After all, they make up the content that searching users end up with. Google checks how relevant this content is in relation to the keywords entered during the search.

Without content, good success is hardly possible

Website operators should therefore strive to provide good content in the form of texts and other media on the website. A blog on your website is ideal for this, where news from the industry, specifications of products, and information on questions from the community can be reported. This text and content are indexed by Google, Bing, etc, and henceforth appear in the search results when the search engine service is used.

If you don’t have time to write the content yourself, we can recommend the HireWriters content platform, where you can order good content at reasonable prices.

On the content ordering platform “HireWriters” you will find many authors who can write about any topic. All you have to do is create a free account, deposit money and then order an item. In a few days, you will then receive the finished article and you can publish it on your website or blog.

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