Your Website SEO Strategy for Better Visibility & Rankings

How to structure your website’s content and performance to influence your ranking in search results.

This article explains how your website’s content and performance affect its visibility and rank amongst search engines. This article is for all levels of understanding—if you’re a seasoned digital marketing professional, skip this introductory part and start at 5 Critical Areas to Evaluate & Improve.

Search Engine Standards & Best Practices

Google sets the benchmark for search engines, so aligning your digital presence with its standards and best practices is a great place to start. Video, social media, other search engines, and discussion platforms like Reddit and Quora have additional algorithm layers to consider when adjusting your strategy for higher visibility and rank.

4 key components make up G’s advanced search algorithms:

1. PageRank – authority based on backlinks
2. RankBrain – AI for search intent
3. BERT & MUM – contextual search results from natural language
4. Helpful Content System – people-first content prioritization

PageRank: G’s Foundational Algorithm for Web Ranking

Let’s start with the PageRank algorithm, initially created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Standford University. PageRank assigns a score to web pages based on the quantity and quality of links pointing to them. A link to your web page is like a vote of confidence that the page contains high-quality content. If people value your page’s content and relevancy to their content, they’ll link to it. The higher the quality of the web page that points to your page, the higher the vote quality.

That’s more than enough math to understand how page ranking works. Now, let’s discuss Link Quantity vs. Link Quality. The more links you have pointing to your web page, the higher the page rank; however, a link from a high-authority page like Wikipedia carries more weight than smaller, low-quality websites. Links from spammy websites or irrelevant links do not help your PageRank and can actually negatively affect it.

How to identify bad backlinks:

• Go to the referring link and evaluate the quality and relevance of the content to your page.
• Check the domain authority using tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz’s Link Explorer, and BACKLINKO.
• Look for keyword stuffing and unnatural copy in the anchor text.
• If the referring website looks like it was created solely for backlinks, it is a black-hat SEO tactic used by Private Blog Networks.

How to remedy bad backlinks:

• In most cases, simply request the referring domain owner to remove an improperly matched link to your content.
• You can report the link using the Search Quality User Report, which flags the page for deceptive behavior or low quality.
• Disallowing links in Search Console is no longer recommended due to an upgrade in the algorithm’s ability to identify and disregard spammy backlinks. However, you can still use the Disavow Link Tool if you’re concerned that spammy links are severely hurting your site.

PageRank still matters for SEO
Websites with high-quality inbound, outbound, and internal links simply rank higher. So, being strategic with your linking structure will still pay off.

1. Naturally earn links from trusted, relevant websites like editorials, industry leaders, and reputable news sites.
   How? Publish high-quality, relevant content optimized for the intended audience, platform, directory, etc. Items like original research, data studies, in-depth guides, and trending topics gain authoritative backlinks.
2. Link to core pages such as products, services, and high-performing blogs from high-authority domains.
3. Include descriptive anchor text so search engines can accurately link content.
4. Distributing PageRank internally by linking from a high-authority blog to a product or service page. Use pages with fewer outgoing links to help pass link equity.
5. Avoid spam links from link farms and PBNs.
6. Note: penalizations from paid links.
7. Promote content through public relations, social media, influencers, affiliates, events, networking, etc.

PageRank matters, but it is no longer the sole ranking factor. A baseline SEO strategy is still built around G’s PageRank core principles. Today’s more sophisticated algorithms factor in AI, content quality, and user engagement along with PageRank.

RankBrain –

When assessing a brand’s digital health, we start with website performance and content optimization.

A brand’s “domain authority” is a combination of its digital presence on various digital marketing channels and platforms. These channels can be websites, applications, emails, social media posts and engagement, video platform content and engagement, followers, public opinion forums, directories, and so on. A common misconception is to be active on all channels; however, clients often only need a web presence, 1-2 social media prescenses, and Google.