Google uses software known as web crawlers that explore the web and scan the content of the websites they find on the internet so that the entries can be created for a search engine index. Google has complex algorithms that analyse web pages for their relevance to the end-user. Google rates web pages based on its opinion of their authority and usefulness to searchers. So, if a web page shows up higher in search results when searching something on Google, this means it is the most authoritative and accurate result for the given search query according to Google. 

In the search result pages, you find answers to the search queries that consist of keywords. Google’s AI understands the intention and meaning behind every search query and then processes it in concepts. There are more than 210 known factors that influence which websites will rank on the search result page for a particular search query. 

Now, the most important thing you need to know here is that many of the ranking factors are created by Google’s AI algorithms themselves. So, understanding how Google decides which websites to rank when searching may seem difficult. But luckily, there are certain strategies that you can implement to improve the search engine rankings of your websites. Also, Google often shares news on their latest algorithm updates. You can take a look at them to better understand how Google ranks websites. 

In this blog, we will discuss some important things that will give you a clear idea of how Google ranks websites and what you can do to improve your site’s rankings on Google. So, let’s get started. 

Does Google Change Its Ranking Algorithm?

Google releases algorithmic updates on a regular basis. These can either be minor updates or bigger ones. The goal of the algorithmic updates by Google is to improve the search results and provide the most relevant results for searchers that match their search queries. 

Google usually releases bigger algorithmic updates every 3-6 months and they affect millions of websites and web pages at a time. However, it can’t be predicted exactly when Google will release an update. You may lose your search engine rankings after a major Google update. If you notice that your search engine rankings have dropped dramatically, you will need to use SEO processes that consist of recovering strategies. That said, websites that are well-maintained may not get much affected from a Google update. 

Types of Google Algorithm Updates

Google releases minor algorithm updates as well as bigger changes that are known as “Broad Core Algorithm Updates”. Minor updates occur 5-9 times every day. In 2018, Google announced more than 3200 updates (About 9 updates per day). These changes may result in a change in ranking positions. You can estimate how big the updates are based on the spike in rank fluctuations. 

You can expect a “Broad Core Algorithm Update” from Google every 3-4 months. This means bigger Google algorithm updates can occur 4-5 times a year. Some of the biggest Google algorithm updates till now include Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, RankBrain, Medic, BERT, etc. 

How Does Google Decide When To Update The Ranking Algorithm?

Google focuses on both user signals and webmaster signals to decide when to update the ranking algorithms. Google analyses user behaviour to find out whether or not users are satisfied with the search results. They also monitor what webmasters do with their websites. If Google finds that a webmaster is doing something wrong to get his website to the top of Google search results or users are dissatisfied with the results, you can expect Google to take action about it.

Google Ranking Factors 

The three major contributing factors in the Google search engine ranking algorithm include:

• How unique, useful, and relevant your content is,
• How well-rounded and attractive your web pages are to the end-user, and 
• How authoritative your website is based on backlinks. 

Let’s take a closer look at the most important Google rankings factors:

On-Page Factors

There are several on-page factors that can influence your website’s rankings on search engine result pages. Here are the measurements that google considers when analysing the content of a website:

1. Is The Content Unique?

Is the content that you have published on your blog or website your original work? Have you added something new to the subject? Then chances are that Google will rank your website higher for relevant search queries. 

2. Is Your Content Helpful?

Google wants to provide as much value as possible to its users. So, if your content is genuinely helpful, you can expect Google to rank your website or blog higher in search results. 

Now, the question is, how Google determines whether or not a piece of content is helpful?

Google makes the decision based on various user signals. The most important ones include:

• Do Most visitors stay on your website for long or bounce back to the search results immediately after landing on your website?

• Do visitors click on the internal links and explore other pages on your website?

• Do visitors actively engage with your content?

• Does the content really answer the queries of the visitors? Or, is it just keyword-stuffed?

These are all crucial factors that tell Google where to rank a website in the search results for a given search query. 

3. Does Your Content Cover The Topic In-Depth?

Long-form content that covers a topic in-depth always has a better chance of ranking higher in search results. So, if you want to improve your rankings, make sure you publish in-depth content. 

4. Other On-Page Factors 

Other on-page factors that Google takes into consideration when deciding which websites to rank on search results when searching include:

• Title Tag
• Meta Description
• Click-Through Rate or CTR
• Page Speed
• The Overall Appearance of A Website, etc.

Off-Page Factors

Here are the off-page factors that Google looks at closely when ranking a website in search engine results:

1. Is Your Website Authoritative?

Your website authority is a major factor that directly contributes to the rankings of your website. 

Does your website have backlinks from authoritative websites? Are those websites relevant to your industry? These are the things that Google considers when determining how authoritative a website is.

2. What is Your Page Authority? 

Page Authority is another important off-page factor for determining the position of a specific web page in search results. Here’s what Google considers to determine how authoritative a particular web page is:

• How many inbound links are pointing to that specific web page?
• Are those links coming from relevant and authoritative websites?
• Is the page linked with relevant anchor texts?

3. How Authoritative and Relevant Your Competitors’ Websites Are?

You need to check the backlinks and on-page content of your competitors’ websites to know how authoritative and relevant they are. 

What Makes A Page Bad According To Google’s Algorithm

Here are the things that make pages bad according to Google’s algorithm:

• Pages with A High Bounce Rate

Suppose a user types his query in the Google search bar and hits enter. He sees a web page on the search results page and clicks on it to visit the website. Now, if the user returns back to the results page immediately after landing on the website, then it will be counted as a “bounce”. If a website’s bounce rate is high, Google assumes that the page is not providing searchers with what they are searching for and that’s why they are leaving the site unsatisfied. This can make a negative impact on the site’s search engine rankings.

• Low Page Speed  

If your pages are too slow to load, it can negatively impact your Google rankings. Studies show that most people leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. There can be several reasons why a web page takes longer to load. These include large web assets like videos, images, scripts, and more. So, if you want better rankings, you must consider optimising your page load speed.  

Ranking Factors That You Can Improve To Rank Higher In Search Results

Here are some of the ranking factors that you can improve:

• Content Quality
• Your Website’s Performance
• Backlinks 
• The Usability Of Your Website

Listed below are some of the questions you need to answer first if you want to achieve a higher ranking in Google search results:

• Does your website look fresh and well-organised?
• Is the text easy to read?
• Is the content on the page unique, helpful, and relevant?
• Are you targeting the right keywords?

Here are some strategies that can help you rank higher on Google:

Step 1: Keyword Optimization

Finding the right keywords and placing them at the right place in your content is important. 

Step 2: Competitor Analysis

See what your competitors are doing to rank on Google, and then work to improve your site based on your findings. 

Step 3: On-Page Optimization

As mentioned earlier, on-page signals are crucial when it comes to Google ranking. Consider making text and visual improvements on your site to make it look more attractive. 

Step 4: Backlink Building

Authority websites always rank higher on Google. And to build authority, you must get backlinks from authoritative websites.  I hope these tips will help you achieve higher positions on Google search result pages. Please go through other online resources to know more about how Google ranks websites. 

The post Google Rankings Explained – Here’s How Google Ranks Websites appeared first on VR Digital.

On the other hand, if you own a startup business, you know that fast-evolving ranking algorithms and SEO techniques can make it difficult for your businesses to optimize their presence in search results. So, what are you going to do to tackle all that?

Well, while challenges are many, the SEO and web designing experts are there for help. So, if you haven’t consulted your website needs with an expert yet, it is high time you take your business on the side of safety.

Here we will be focusing on some relevant SEO and web designing challenges that a reliable digital marketing agency can help you with. So, here we go.

Web designing hurdles to overcome

After all, the aesthetics of a website is determined by the web design. It will decide how it will look, the content, graphics, and how it will work. The modern web designing challenges are conceptualizing, planning and developing a bunch of electronic files.

These files will determine the design, colours, structure, graphics, images, text styles, and other interactive traits displaying pages to visitors on the site.

Another thing is scalability. When a website is being developed, it is crucial to estimate the workload it can deal with. Therefore, it is a part of web design challenges toconsider all the problems that might appear later. Generally, there are two aspects of scalability:

• Increased number of visitors (often more than anticipated). This tends to reduce the performance and speed of the site or application.
  
  
• In e-commerce sites, an expansion of the product range might adversely affect the page loading time. Also, it can make the inventory updates an issue.

When it comes to solving these problems, a lot depends on how the website has been designed. To speak the truth, scalability is not about performance or bandwidth. It is more about the load put on a single server, and the best solution to this problem is to design software that can share the total load among multiple servers at the peak times of usage.

SEO Challenges For Start-Ups

It will surely make the journey much easier if you are aware of the major challenges of optimizing your content for improving your search presence. The difficulties that startup owners should take a look at and get ready to overcome are below:

It is crucial to consistently produce great content and build many high-quality links in due course. What is even more important is getting a realistic picture of when you can expect your SEO strategies to yield visible outcomes.

You should be ready to face the other challenges are fake SEO companies, budget, conventional vs. modern Search Engine Optimisatio tactics, slow progress, social media vs. SEO, ROI, Quality content, etc.

However, it would help if you did not worry about that because the trusted and highly experienced digital marketing experts are out there to help you out. In some of our upcoming blogs, we will be discussing the tactics experts imply for dealing with these hurdles. So, stay in touch.

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Customers and clients are the foundation of any business. It’s almost impossible to grow and expand a business without a solid customer acquisition strategy in place. 

But how do you attract new customers to your business?

Getting new customers for your small business doesn’t have to be difficult. In this article, we will discuss 10 effective ways that can help you get the word out and acquire new customers. So, let’s get started.

Ways to Get New Customers for Your Small Business 

Here’s how you can get new customers for your small biz:

1. Make Your Existing Customers Spread The Word About Your Business

Word of mouth is a powerful tool that can help you acquire new customers for your business. It is one of the oldest forms of advertising that businesses have been using for a long time. 

Today everyone tends to spend more on paid media advertising and other similar marketing methods. But according to most marketers, word-of-mouth is still the most trusted method that can increase brand awareness and present your business to a completely new set of audience. In fact, there are many small businesses that solely rely on this strategy. 

But how does it work?

According to Prerna from Canberra Bond Cleaning, when a customer is satisfied with your product or service, he/she is likely to share the experience with his closed ones, including his family, friends, colleagues, etc. This makes more and more people aware of the existence of your business. 

Here are a few ideas that you can use to make your existing customers use word-of-mouth advertising to your advantage:

• First of all, your product or service should make your customers happy and satisfied. It should deliver results that exceed their expectations.

• Second, you need to provide a great customer experience. Your customers should feel that you care about them. 

• Third, you can offer an incentive to motivate your existing customers to sell for you.

2. Offer a Freebie

Who doesn’t like free stuff?

The word ‘FREE’ is extremely powerful when used correctly. Giving something away for free can help you make people interested in connecting with your brand.

This strategy works because it allows people to try out the products and services you offer without any risk. They know there’s nothing to lose here. And if your free trial or sample really impresses the users, they will definitely return next time to pay for it.

However, it’s important to create urgency. You should always go for ‘LIMITED TIME OFFER’ campaigns. This will help you attract more new customers to your small business. 

3. Run A Contest

If you sell something very expensive and can’t afford to give it away for free, then you can consider starting a contest. 

You can ask people to make a purchase with you in order to enter the contest. The prize can be anything, from a gift card to a honeymoon trip. You should choose a prize that can make people feel excited about it. 

The lucky winners will talk about the contest with their friends and colleagues. It will create a free buzz about your brand.

4. Use Social Media

A social media platform can be a great marketing tool.

Social media has really changed the world including marketing. It gives brands a great opportunity to reach a group of audience that they wouldn’t reach otherwise. 

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. allow the users to share stuff they like. So, if you share good and valuable content on social media and people like it, they are more likely to share it with their network. It will help you generate free exposure for your brand. 

Here are some of the amazing advantages of using social media for new customer acquisition:

• The number of social media users is increasing with each passing day.
• It is a cheap way to promote your brand.
• Social media platforms allow you to easily engage and interact with your potential customers. 
• You can reach a global audience with the help of social media.

5. Offer Deals That People Can’t Resist

Just like freebies, discounted deals and offers are another proven way that can help you get new customers for your business. 

When people see a deal or discount, they know it is an opportunity to save money. So, by offering a deal on the products or services you sell, you can influence people to make a purchasing decision.

6. Set Up A Website and Focus on Search Engine Optimization

In the 21st century, it’s very difficult to grow a business without an online presence.

Now, one of the basic things that you need to create a solid online presence is a website. You can buy a domain name and hosting provider and set up a website for your business yourself. You can also hire a professional website developer for the purpose.  

Once you successfully launch your website, the next thing you need to do is to perform SEO or search engine optimization for your site. You could get a lot of new customers every month if your website ranks in search results for keywords related to your business. 

7. Use Online Directories

You should list your small business on popular local directories. When your business is listed on a directory, people around the world can find it. So, this will expand the reach of your business. The best thing about these directories is that most of them are completely free to register.

8. Use Cross-Promotion

Teaming up with other businesses in your industry can help you present your brand to a new audience. Many marketers use this strategy to generate leads and acquire new customers. It works great for new businesses. 

9. Use Digital Advertising

Online advertising like Pay Per Click Campaigns works out to be cheaper and quicker than traditional advertising. Also, there are plenty of Platforms & Media Channels to choose from. You can run text ads, video ads, etc. to promote your products and services. The best thing about Digital Marketing is that it allows you to measure the results. 

10. Start Giving Speeches

Giving a speech is a great way to showcase your expertise. It allows you to tell your target market why they should do business with you. 

Conclusion So, these are some tips that can help you get new customers for your business. You can combine different marketing strategies to get the best results. 

The post 10 Proven Ways to Attract More Customers For Your Business appeared first on VR Digital.

When it comes to drawing user traffic to your business’ website, you can go about it either through search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. 

You can boost traffic to your website for free by getting high rankings in the organic search results. For this, you need to follow SEO best practices. The process may take some time, but the free, targeted traffic definitely proves worthy of your investment.

On the other hand, you can pay to get traffic to your website by using PPC advertising offered by Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, or any other search engine. These programs allow you to display your ads in the sponsored ad section of each SERPs. You pay a fee on the basis of the competitiveness of your target keyword whenever a user clicks on your ad and visits your website.

But often business owners wonder which of the two is a better option. It all depends on your goals and marketing budget. If earning fast traffic is your goal and you are also ready to pay for it, then you should go for PPC advertising. However, if you have a shoestring budget, then it makes more sense to go the organic way through SEO.

So, to choose the best marketing approach, you should ask yourself the following questions:

1. How small or big is your advertising budget?

2. What is the average cost-per-click (CPC) in your niche?

3. How competitive are your target keywords to SERP rankings?

When you answer these three questions, you will be better equipped with the knowledge to make a smart choice.

But, as far as possible, you should use both SEO and PPC in tandem because they aid each other. Both approaches work great in pushing your website ranking up. So it would be ideal to incorporate both in your digital marketing strategy.

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