When Google’s crawlers worm their way through your website, they’re looking to identify high and low quality pages. Websites with a large number of high-quality pages will rank well; websites with too many low-quality pages will rank poorly. As such, performing consistent site audits to identify and either cut or improve low quality pages is a central function of any SEO agency‘s job. However, in order to perform this maintenance, you need to know what Google is looking for…
First and foremost, Google prefers content that offers unique value to your visitors. Every page on your site should deliver information that other pages don’t. Rewording or rephrasing the same message again and again dilutes your messaging, and can hurt your ranking. Each page on your site should effectively answer the search query that brought users there. For example, if a user searching “personal injury lawyer,” arrives at your page, stays there for a while, and later returns to Google to perform an entirely different search, Google interprets this as the user’s query being solved, and will serve your page to more searchers.
Links are still important, too, but not necessarily in terms of sheer volume. If your SEO agency is writing blogs for you, for instance, they should feel free to link to high-quality outside sources. This indicates to Google that your information is accurate and useful to searchers. Links to your page are also valuable, even if they come from within your own site. Don’t be afraid of a little interlinking, especially between your highest-quality pages.
In a recent Whiteboard Friday segment, Moz’s Rand Fishkin listed a few other indicators of high-quality pages, including fast load times; easy navigability and accessibility across platforms, from mobile to tablet to laptop; excellent grammar and spelling; and well-organized, easy-to-consume content.
As a Premier Google Partner All-Star SEO Agency, GrowthEngine Media is positioned to optimize your site in accordance with Google’s preferred practices, making you more visible online and more valuable to your target audience.
