Google Knows What Works, Give It What It Wants.
- 29th April 2020
- : Blog
IMPORTANT: Little known but very powerful tip below
Google pretty much knows virtually everything about websites these days.
Not only does most of the worlds internet traffic start at Google, but with most sites using Google Analytics / Google Console / Google Tag Manager and even Google fonts – these sites themselves tell Google everything that’s going on.
Then add into the mix, Google Chrome browser data, users on Google Android mobile devices and even Google Nest voice search – it’s clear to see that Google knows almost everything that’s going on.
Why is this important?
Because Google’s only goal is to put the page with the VERY BEST USER EXPERIENCE at the top.
I’ve put these in capitals because if you always think like this (even with PPC) you’ll have a major edge over most of your competitors.
But, this isn’t the tip. The tip is…
The sites sitting on page one for your keyword(s) have great user experience in Google’s eyes, or they wouldn’t be there.
The very best user experience is different for each niche, and sometimes even different for each keyword. For example, the best user experience for a wedding photography site, could be a very simple site with lots of high quality images and a contact form. Whereas the very best user experience for a new vitamin supplement, could be a 10k word piece of content that references multiple medical research documents.
So if Google knows what’s the best user experience, you can take this knowledge and apply to your own site and page(s), to not only improve the user experience and thus conversions from your site, but also to please Google.
It’s incredibly easy to do. For each keyword you want to rank for on SEO (or bid on PPC) simply type it into Google and open up the top 10 sites and compare. You’re looking for things such as…
1. Amount of content
2. The type of content, e.g. informal, lots of questions, big paragraphs, calls to actions, etc
3. Are images and videos used? If so, how many, where on the page, what are they about, how do they help the user?
4. What menu options do they have?
5. What page layout do they have?
…and so forth. If you find 9 out of the top 10 sites have similar things and your page is totally different, it will at best be much harder and take longer to get your page to rank page one, or at worse impossible because with all of Googles data, your site / page doesn’t match the metrics that Google knows works well.
So before you make a web page targeting a keyword, pop that keyword into Google, and review the top 10 pages and make a list of what they have in common, and what you like, and base your page around the same content, layout, style, call to actions, etc so you give Google what It likes, and knows works best, rather that making something different.