Have you ever wondered why some sites rank high on Google when they are not optimized for search engines? Or worse, when they barely have any backlinks?
We've been asked this question many times over the past few months, so we thought we'd write a post explaining why this happens.
Here's Why Some Sites Rank High When They're Not Optimized
Have you ever wondered why certain websites rank higher than others? Or why your website doesn't rank as high as your competition? A lot of it has to do with Google's algorithm. It looks at over 200 ranking factors when determining where to rank a site. As you already know, these ranking factors aren't easy to understand, making it difficult for you to figure out how to tweak your site to maximize your rankings.
How does Google determine where to rank your website?
Now that you have an idea of some of the ranking factors Google considers, let's dive into more detail.
Click for ratings
Part of Google's algorithm looks at click-through rate. It calculates it as a percentage, reflecting how many clicks you get out of the total number of people searching for that particular phrase you're ranking for.
The higher the percentage, the more attractive your listing is compared to the competition. And if your click-through rate is higher than everyone else's, Google will slowly start moving you up the search engine results page, as this algorithm factor tells it that searchers prefer your listing.
Looking at click-through rate isn't enough, though, as people might create misleading title tags and meta descriptions to boost their results. That's why Google also looks at your bounce rate.
It evaluates the number of people who leave your page by pressing the back button to return to the search listing page. If Google sends 1,000 people to one of your web pages and each of those 1,000 people presses the back button within a few seconds, it tells Google that your web page is not relevant.
Many of the websites that rank well on Google and don't seem to be optimized have a high click-through rate and a low bounce rate. And that helps maintain their rankings.
Here's another example. If a post ranks well among the "best times to post on social media," it would be hard to top this list since the click-through rate is currently quite high.
ctr classification
If you want to see your click-through rates, log in to Webmaster Tools and click on your site profile. If you don't have a site profile, it means you need to add your site to Webmaster Tools and wait a few days.
Once you're viewing your site in Google Webmaster Tools, click on the "search traffic" navigation option and then click on "search queries."
Age
One of the big factors that make some sites rank well is their age. Most sites that rank highly are at least a few years old.
Sure, most of these older sites have more backlinks and content because they've been around longer, but not all of them.
What we've noticed is that if you take a brand new website, build tons of relevant links, and add high-quality content, it still won't get as much search traffic as older sites.
There's not much you can do here other than give it time. The older your site is, the more search traffic it will generally get, assuming you're continually trying to improve it.
Backlinks
Google doesn't just look at the sheer number of backlinks a site has, it also looks at relevance and authority.
Many of these unoptimized sites that rank well have some high-quality backlinks pointing to the right internal pages. For example, if you have few links, but they come from .edu and .gov extensions, your site will rank extremely well.
In addition to having the right backlinks, those sites also have accurate anchor text for these links. Most SEOs think that rich anchor text links are needed to rank well, but the reality is that's not the case.
Google can look at the web page that links to you and analyze the text around the link as well as the text on the page. It helps Google determine if the link is relevant to your site and what it should potentially rank for.
Monitor your link profile
Links pointing to your site can make or break you.
Recent research suggests that “high-quality backlinks account for 30% of your overall page score on Google.”
We can’t stress enough how important it is to monitor which sites link to you. Low-quality, irrelevant, or spammy sites can be the kiss of death. One tool you can use to see who is linking to you is SEMrush.
If you need to remove any links, use Google’s disavow tool. Learn more about the process of disavowing links here.
Content quality
Since its Panda update, Google has been able to determine the quality of content on websites. For example, it can determine if a site is too simple or has duplicate content, allowing for much better analysis of content quality than before.
Many of these older, well-ranking sites have very high-quality content. You may not believe it, but Google does.
Why?
Because Google doesn't just look at a site's content... It looks at a website's content and compares it to others within that space. So if you have higher-quality content than all of your competitors, you're much more likely to outrank them in the long run.
Internal link
The biggest mistake we see sites making right now is that they tend to forget to use internal linking, where you link one of your web pages to another. And if you are using internal linking, you are probably using rich anchor text, which is not good.
Doing this will help the article rank for long-tail SEO related keywords. The key to leveraging internal linking is to avoid using rich anchor text. For this reason, we wouldn't link that long-tail SEO article 10 times with “long-tail SEO” anchor text.
The tactic of using non-rich anchor text is so effective that Mashable ranks on the first page of Google for terms like “YouTube” because of internal linking efforts.
Don't expect immediate results when you start adding internal links. It usually takes 3+ months for links to start working. And you can't just go into your old web pages and posts and slap on tons of internal links. You should do this slowly, over time, and also add internal links to new pages.
Website speed
Don't you hate it when websites load slowly? We know we do. To make matters worse, do you ever go back to websites that load slowly? Chances are you don't!
For that very reason, in April 2010, Google started taking loading time into account when ranking sites. It wasn't because you wouldn't go back to those slow-loading sites, but because they saw a trend that indicated you would decrease your use of Google when Google showed you slow websites. And if you use Google less and start using other search engines, Google would make less money from your ads.
So, in that spirit, here's an infographic that explains how loading time affects Google rankings and what you can do to fix it.
So how do you speed up your site? Here are some tips to improve site speed:
- Content Delivery Network – Your hosting company should have this feature. Give them a call to enable it. Put your site on servers around the world so your site loads faster.
- Fast Server – Choose the best website hosting provider. This makes a huge difference when it comes to site speed.
- Clean up your code – It pays to hire a good developer as it will make your code cleaner. Messy code usually means a slower site.
- A quick way to get started is with a Google speed test which will give you tips to improve your website speed.
Social actions
There has been a recent debate about whether social shares impact rankings or not. Whether they do or not, more social shares mean more traffic. And the more people who visit your website, the higher the chances that someone will naturally link to you. And more links mean higher rankings.
For this reason, you should try to get more social shares.
There are 10 easy ways to get your web pages shared more on social media:
- Add social sharing buttons to your web pages. Similar to plugins you might use on your blog like Sharebar, you'll also want to use social buttons on web pages that contain valuable content.
- If you have a blog, you can always ask your readers to share a specific web page via Twitter or Facebook. Trust us, begging works. 😉
- If you have connections with influential social media users, you can also ask them to share your web page.
- If you haven't used Triberr, you should check it out.
- You can always pay for social sharing via Twitter ads.
- You can pay for Facebook shares and likes via Facebook ads
- Bride your visitors by allowing them to get a free eBook in exchange for sharing on social media.
- To further show you how social media impacts your search rankings, we decided to create a gifographic (animated infographic) that explains the correlation.
- How Social Signals Impact Search Engine Rankings
- Brand Signals
- One element of SEO in particular that has been attracting a lot of attention recently is brand signals.
In a post on Moz, Rand Fishkin explained that Google wanted to separate the “brands” that produce satisfied searchers and customers from the “generics” – sites that have often been classified as “weak affiliates” or with poor user experiences.
Simply put, brand signals are signals that show:
- Your brand exists
- You are a credible brand
- You are a trusted brand
- In other words, brand signals show Google that you are legitimate – not just a “generic” charlatan.
In our view, generating brand signals is quickly becoming an important way to build trust with Google and increase your search engine exposure.
In addition to this, effectively creating brand signals should also have a positive impact on your overall brand value.
We also predict that companies that skimp in this area will be at a major disadvantage in the very near future.
How does Google decide if you are a brand?
It goes without saying that you want Google to consider you a “brand” and not a “generic.” There are a few ways Google can classify a brand:
- Mentions on the web (e.g., references to your brand in reputable publications)
- Verifiable identity (e.g., business incorporation listings and full contact information)
- Activity on social accounts
- User queries (e.g., a high volume of people searching for your brand on Google)
- How can you generate brand signals for SEO?
- Now that we know how Google determines whether or not you are a brand, let's discuss how to generate brand signals to generate SEO value.
More specifically, we'd like to explain to you how to do it quickly.
Here are some techniques that have worked for us and should work for you too.
Create a comprehensive About page
As Moz clearly states, Google wants to know that your brand actually exists. Therefore, it's important that you beef up your About page and include plenty of details.
What else is Google looking for? Whether or not you have a physical address.
Let's be honest. It's easy for any snake oil salesman to create a website and claim to be an authority in their industry.
But Google wants to know that you're a legitimate brand and that you actually add value. That's why it typically gives preferential treatment to businesses with a real office address and physical presence.
So, make sure to include this information as well.
Be active on major social media networks.
Do we really even need to say that having a social media presence is important?
We're sure you already know that.
But if you needed yet another reason to be active on social media, generating brand signals is the solution.
- In addition to the direct traffic it generates and the SEO juice that comes from its signals, social media also plays a direct role in whether or not Google considers your business a brand.
We'd say the networks you'll definitely want to be active on are:
- Twitter (ideally, as a verified account)
If you have the time, we'd also recommend creating an account on YouTube.
Aside from the fact that it's owned by Google, it can be really advantageous from a branding standpoint.
It's also incredibly popular and should help you penetrate your market more effectively. And there's another trick we think will help you generate brand signals through social media even faster.
This is to get your employees to create profiles on these networks and link to your company profile. For LinkedIn, make sure they explicitly state that they work for your company.
By doing so, you show Google that you DO have employees working for you, making it more likely to identify you as a real brand.
Be active on relevant niche platforms
Another strategy to quickly gain traction is to sign up for “niche platforms,” which are basically sites geared toward a specific industry.
For example, a lawyer would want to be on Avvo and a real estate agent would want to be on Zillow.
Get the idea?
This should send the right message to Google and make it take notice.
Consistently create high-quality visual content. Okay, so this probably sounds like a no-brainer. And it is.
We’re not going to talk too much about the impact a well-executed content marketing campaign can have, but consistently distributing high-quality content through the right mediums will help your SEO on many levels, including creating brand signals.
But for maximum impact, visual content is the way to go.
Why visuals?
As we mentioned before…brand signals aren’t just about mentions. They’re about mentions that people see, recognize, and identify with. Brand signals are for users, not algorithms.
Not only do images help you connect with your audience in a memorable way, but they also speed up your brand signal building efforts considerably.
This is because visual content tends to be shared a lot and has the potential to go viral.
In fact, “content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.”
Just look at how popular they have become over the past few years:
As other websites mention yours, your brand gains credibility through mention.
That’s why our final suggestion for generating brand signals for SEO is to guest post on relevant, highly respected, and authoritative sites within your industry.
For example, we strive to contribute to sites like:
- Forbes
- Inc.com
- Entrepreneur
- The Content Marketing Institute
- image01
They all have to do with business, marketing, and entrepreneurship and have helped us create tremendous leverage.
Of course, the specific sites you target will depend on your unique industry/niche. Just look for the big ones that get a high volume of traffic and are well-respected.
To further maximize your impact, use branded anchor text (where your brand name is included in the hyperlink) when linking to your site.
Just make sure it looks natural, not like you're deliberately trying to include your brand name in your hyperlinks.
User experience
At the end of the day, Google is interested in one thing: giving its users the best possible experience. If your website offers a great user experience, you should be in pretty good shape.
No matter what Google offers you, there should be a level of stability and your rankings are unlikely to experience a dramatic drop. We now realize that offering “great user experience” is a broad spectrum open to many interpretations.
We strongly believe in “general SEO,” where one focuses on quality, user experience, and fundamental SEO best practices rather than trying to game the system.
If you’re doing anything close to black hat or even grey hat SEO, it will likely come back to bite you and hurt your rankings.
- Black Hat SEO Strategies
- IP Address in Local Search
- In the past, what appeared in search results was primarily based on the keywords entered.
But with Possum, Google will now take into account the IP address of the search engine user when generating search results.
This is Google's way of ensuring that users get the most accurate results when performing a search.
The main reason for this change is the sheer volume of people using mobile devices.
Because people are often on the go, this ensures that they always get the best results based on their current location. This is something you'll want to keep in mind and use to guide your local SEO approach.
We think Inc.com offers a smart suggestion:
“Your QA team should test your work as a user within the company’s region and not just test it by Googling the company name and location.” Doing so should definitely give you an edge over competitors who still base their strategy primarily on keywords (an outdated strategy at this point).
The key to getting more search traffic isn’t just about building more links or adding more content. It’s also about understanding Google’s algorithm. And if you want to dig a little deeper, it all comes down to understanding people, as Google’s goal is to always do what’s best for its users.
So, if you want to maximize your search rankings, the best thing you can do is do what’s best for your users. Sure, in the short term your rankings might not go up as fast as you’d like, but in the long term you should be doing just fine.
