Many people rely on the internet for information about services and products; information which significantly influences their purchasing decisions. There are many search engines including Bing, MSN, and Google all of which are used by different consumers to search the web. Google is clearly the number on search engine and for this reason; I will be referring to it for the purpose of this article. When a potential consumer searches for a certain product, service, or activity on the web, the search engines will bring results of websites relevant to that particular search.
What makes some websites appear on the top pages of Google while other are buried in the second and subsequent pages?
Websites which have optimized their websites to be more visible to search engines obviously rank better on the search engines results pages (SERPs) leaving websites which have not been effectively optimized to appear in second or third pages. Effective SEO means incorporating different marketing strategies aimed at making it easier for search engines to recognize the particular websites them as good matches for a search. But one of the essentials of SEO is providing relevant and quality content.
Google constantly improves its technologies to ensure that it better matches searches to quality and relevant content. As a result, Google has gathered and continues to gather a huge following of people who rely on it to provide relevant information about products, services, businesses and basically any other thing. This has seen Google rise to become the leading search engine worldwide. Consequently, Google gives more authority and relevance to businesses which provide quality content on their websites and social media accounts that is actually relevant to the needs of consumers. As a result, such websites actually rank better on SERPs.
So how does Google know whether or not website provide quality content to web page visitors?
To rank on the top pages of Google, some webmasters and marketers use tricks and various methods to influence search engines so that their websites rank better. However, a website appears on the top pages of Google but registers a high bounce rate( a situation where visitors leave a web page without spending any significant time) such a website will be seen to have content that is not meaningful or relevant to the people who visit it. As a result, such a website will be ranked lower and lower on SERPs.
However, a website that registers a very low bounce rate will enjoy higher rankings as Google views them as having quality, interesting, and relevant information which engages web visitors influencing them to spend more time on the website. Recent studies also show that websites which provide more content rank better in SERPs. In light of this, content is indeed king when it comes to effective SEO and higher ranking on Google and other search engines. For a website to become more visible and to rank more in SERPs, it should contain quality content, relevant key words, unique and useful information