It’s no secret that generally when people refer to SEO in relation to search engines ultimately they are really just talking about Google. Google became the leader early on and is still the most widely used search engine. Although other search engines have improved over time, Google is still recognised as the leader and by a significant distance too.

When it comes to Google rankings, most people get stuck on keywords and try to get enough of them in their content so Google can pick them up. Although it is true that keywords do play a vital role in the ranking of search engines, there is much more to SEO than this.

Backlinks

Backlinks are an enormous component of what makes a good website for Google or not. Before Google lifts your site up the rankings it needs to know whether it’s offering quality content. A way to prove this is to have other good sites hosting links to your website and vice versa. The bigger, more reputable and relevant the website, the better it is for you.

Content

Your website content is not just about loading as many keywords as you can into a web page. In 2020 Google modified its algorithm to put more emphasis on written quality content. The material should not only be fantastic but still long enough to please the reader. Last but not least, brief yet well-written content would not rate as high as lengthy well-written material.

Website Quality

Google’s crawlers will go through all elements of your site and turn it inside and out in ways that you may never have even thought possible. It will check whether it is compatible with mobile devices, the speed of the loading of pages, how many times the users clicked pages and all kinds of other tests. Creating excellent content on a badly formatted site won’t get you anywhere, so make sure your clear navigation, media-rich pages and well-formatted copy with plenty of white space are given priority.

In being human Google is always getting better and better. It is reading sites and ignoring those which would be difficult for a human user to access and difficult to understand. Keywords are important to SEO but it’s also crucial not to neglect the rest of the website.