‘Google SEO’ – Make it Simple.
With the usage of machine learning, Google is improving search result quality. It’s bringing tremendous changes in how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works. The future of SEO could be very complex or extremely simple depending on your mindset as an SEO professional. So, keep it simple with the right set of choices. The mindset should be to be more useful for visitors. So rather than making efforts to understand and abuse Google’s search engine algorithm, focus on helping those who are visiting your websites. Make your website more relevant to your target audience and serve their needs better than any other competitor out there. Google Rank will be the outcome of the actions coming out of this mindset. Don’t waste your SEO time abusing the system because Google’s enhanced power with machine learning will filter such practices. So let’s not focus on cracking that rather think like Google to serve its customers. As an SEO professional, your aim should be to satisfy the visitor on your website or blog with relevant and quality content. Google rank will be the outcome of your efforts. Help users, help Google – make it simple.
As SEO professionals it is becoming more and more important to align with Google’s vision and work towards fulfilling the user needs. Focus on enhancing the user experience rather than wasting resources in trying strategies to understand and crack the algorithm of Google. Google’s success lies in the seamless search result quality that generates value for each user. With machine learning the power of Google to understand its users is further going to enhance.
The equation for Success = Success for a business is in proportion to how many individual problems it can solve.
Google is holding a dominant position in the search engine market just for this simple fact it connects with users to bring answers to their problems. If we look around there are other good search engines as well, but very rarely surfers are using Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo options. Google is not only a search engine, it provides many free services, tools and products to enhance the user experience. One such free tool is Google Chrome, its main browser for more than 2.65 billion users. Chrome has ‘Google’ as the default search engine which is rarely changed by users. Google is a source of mainstream traffic and tempts all businesses to attain that top-ranking position in the search results.
In this competitive scenario in the search engine market, Google wants to retain that top position and market share. So any act of cracking its algorithm by a so-called SEO professional would certainly be caught by Google and result in a penalty. Google knows it is there because of good quality search results and anyone who helps Google to carry on that would get a better rank. This does not mean that SEOs and their strategic approach are not needed in the future, rather they would be needed more than ever but what is not needed is unethical strategic approaches and a tiny self-centered focus to bring more traffic or float on the top.
SEO Journey
For those of you who are new in the world of SEO, the story starts with a ‘keyword‘. The right keyword is the key to success. It is the most important component of the SEO journey. There are many wonderful tools to search for the most valued keywords. To start with, you should just put your steps in the shoes of users. To search on the internet users punch in some keywords to get a result. Google ranks the search results in a way that the topmost organic website would be most relevant for the user. The success of search engines lies in the quality of their search results. The consumer starts its purchase journey on Google thus everyone wants to attain that first search result position. The keywords and the search engine results are a goldmine for all the businesses out there.
Every business wants to see its website floating on the top of the Google search engine result page (SERP). Actually, with new voice search options, the race has become even more interesting. Google Home, and Amazon Alexa is the virtual assistant of modern internet users. It is easier to talk than punching on the keyboard thus search terms have to be semantic and understand the context.
The reservoir is the same but the way it is pulled and queried has changed everything. Users now want to talk to Google and thus the job of SEOs has become challenging and interesting. They need to find new strategies to help digital real estate float on top of the SERP.
Smart Google Search Engine
Google knows. Google is continuously improving the search results with the science of machine learning. Old strategies like stuffing maximum possible related keywords in the content to bring traffic might work against you if there is less or no conversion. You should work on refining your keywords list, that is a must but keep in mind the relevance of content to your target visitors. Remember the keywords that merely generate traffic and have no conversion will hurt your rank in the long run. Make sure to run a pre-check before launching a listing or your PPC campaign to ensure optimum conversion rate. Google has become a smart search engine, it churns the content to ensure that quality floats on the top. Google keeps on updating its search algorithm and is a secret. But SEO experts try to crack and manage to float on top of search results. But with machine learning, such practices will be identified and penalized by Google.
Google is moving on to the semantic search. It does not follow the literal keyword-only but can now go behind the words to relate to the context. This is even better to handle voice search queries. Machine learning is the future, simple put machines would adapt to your needs by understanding you better. As the name suggests machine or coding learns by doing.
Practice makes a man machine perfect.
With the use of machine learning technology, Google search is refining continuously. With every search query and post-search user behaviour, it is improving ranking. It is learning with each instance of its usage – learning with its own experience. With BigData and Machine Learning an ever-improving endless self-coding is going on. It’s on autopilot refining itself based on all those variables which are set in the back end.
Success Mantra of SEO
Think like Google. Remember, if you want to be on the top in SERP you must think like Google. Make sure to align your focus with Google even before you start SEO. See-through the lens of Google’s mission and then you will soon see your website floating on the top. Google’s main job is to serve anyone who is searching for anything with the best possible answer to the query. Don’t be a hindrance in Google’s main objective by tricking it. Google wants to ensure that anyone searching should be satisfied with its first search result shown. Make sure you avoid misleading the search traffic by trying to overplay its algorithm.
Google aims is to bring the best-ranking website as an answer to your search results. Google is going to raise the rank for such websites where the user ends the search. That is why on SEO we aim to have a low bounce rate. If your website has a higher stickiness rate it means users are getting something and Google will support your website. So be mindful to give detailed attention to enhance the user experience on your post or website.
Make a runway before takeoff – before you start working on SEO your focus is on enhancing user experience. Changing your focus from ‘traffic building’ to Google user experience could be a game-changer on Google for your website. Know your target audience, do some research to understand their problem. Everyone comes on Google to find some solution to their problem – so understand before you solve it. Improve the relevance of your content, it should connect with user needs. Every other strategy of SEOs that might follow will show the best results. Higher stickiness rate, citations, reviews and backlinks – all SEO goals will then become a natural outcome with slight efforts.
Use SEM as a booster only
Supplements are good for human health but if taken in moderation. Excessive usage of supplements for a longer period might result in renal failure. Google Ads are nothing but supplements that must be added with SEO to give a boost. Be cautious to use it for boosting conversion and right traffic because excessive SEM might result in wastage of resources.
I have seen businesses spending tons of money to attain that top position on the SERP. They use SEM to boost their ranking with the hope that over the long run SEO will catch up and they will be able to hold a permanent organic position. But unfortunately, most of the businesses roll back to the third or fourth page on the search result soon after they stop spending on Ads. The reason being the website did not satisfy the visitors, so make sure your website is perfect rather I would recommend start SEM strategies to pump in money only once you see your listing/website is already coming organically showing on the second page of the search result or the bottom of the first page, depending on the competition in your target keyword area.
To conclude, SEO is a MUST but before starting optimizing SEO the foundation should be good. Don’t hunt for shortcut strategies because it won’t last long and you would waste your resources and efforts. Focus on the needs of the target consumer behind those keywords that you might be hunting for. It takes time and attention to the details, so slowly work on developing suitable social media strategies as building blocks to bring your website or landing page to the right audience. This way you will sustain and develop loyal visitors to your virtual space. Before takeoff makes sure that you see your website from the lens of Google – ask yourself is it something that you would stick on, come back again on the same for a similar problem or you feel something is still missing on it. Polish, Polish and Polish the content with data analysis.
Please leave any comments, questions that you might have.