How Search Engines Work & Why Good Content Rises to The Top


The way Google, the world’s most used search engine with nearly 4 billion searches per day, and other search engines work remains a mystery to many people who rely on them to deliver traffic to their websites and blogs.

Let’s be honest. Search engines are complicated. They function with the use of complex formulas that most of us don’t fully understand. The good news is you don’t need a degree in computer science to understand the basics of how they operate.


Getting a solid grasp of how search engines work and learning what they do to your content is essential for anyone with a website or blog and for individuals who write or create other content for the internet. Knowing what search engines do and how they do it can help you create content and make changes that boost your search engine optimization (SEO) and get you more organic or free traffic which can mean more customers, clients or readers over time. Here’s a basic overview of search engines and what they do to your website’s content.

What Search Engines Do


Search engines use software to scan web pages for information that's helpful to their users. After the information is scanned, similar web pages are grouped together and organized so the web pages that best answer the search question are placed at the top of search results.

Web pages are ranked according to many different factors including the relevance of content. That means the web pages from a specific category or niche that have the highest quality information about a specific topic will likely be placed on the first, second and third pages of the search engine results that are generated when people type questions or search terms into the search engine.


Spiders and Bots


Website crawling software, known as spiders, and in the case of Google, Google bots, scan every accessible page of a website or blog in search of words and phrases called keywords and other important elements that can be used to index them.

If spiders or Google bots don’t find the right keywords or too few of them they may only partially scan a web page or may not scan it at all. Partially crawled web pages get pushed further back in search results where they may never be found, and pages that are not scanned will not appear in search results. The use of too many keywords, known as keyword stuffing, can block a website or blog from search altogether.

Fresh Content


Just because a website or blog has gained visibility in search engines doesn’t mean it will stay that way. Websites and blogs that don’t add fresh content regularly can expect to lose their position in search to a website or blog that posts new content more frequently. Simply put, websites and blogs that post unique content often will be crawled more than those that don’t.

Learning the basics of how search engines work gives you the knowledge you need to create content that has a better chance of ranking higher in search results. A higher position in search results can
not only bring you more organic traffic but also help you get more customers and grow your business or brand.

Author: Chanel Polk

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 1 Thing You Need to Be A Good Writer

Image
What’s the one thing you need to be a good writer? The answer may surprise you. You don’t need a college degree in English, journalism, creative writing, or communications to be a great writer. You don’t need to know all of the rules of grammar and speech by heart either. Believe it or not, the one thing you absolutely must have to be a good writer is confidence. You must believe in yourself. You must also believe in your ability to learn and grow. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with studying to make yourself a better writer and earning a degree while you’re at it. But if you don’t believe in your ability to apply what you’ve learned in a real-life situation outside of the classroom you won’t make it very far. In my experience, writers are notoriously insecure about their capabilities and instead of writing something and declaring “I know this is good” they’re more likely to say “I don’t know if this is any good. Let me find out what someone else thinks.” There’s
Read More »

3 Unethical Freelance Writing Assignments to Avoid

Image
Unethical freelance writing assignments require some sort of ambiguity, deception or dishonesty on the part of the writer. These assignments conflict with your morals and demand that you put your values to the side to get the work done. Instead of employing well respected traditional methods to complete writing assignments, unethical writing gigs cross the line and ask you to pretend to be something you’re not or to fabricate information.
Read More »

5 Tips for Finding Clients in Facebook Groups

Image
Facebook groups can be a great place to find clients for your freelance writing business or any other type of business. I've come across numerous leads and have made lasting connections with several clients through Facebook groups. I definitely recommend interacting with the members of Facebook groups as a way to network, increase awareness of your brand and grow your business, but it has to be done the right way to have maximum impact. Main points of this post: 1. Be Sincere 2. Join the Discussion 3. Share What You Know 4. Look for opportunities 5. Slide in the DMs 1. Be Sincere Dropping the link to your website, asking people to follow your social media pages, or posting a random comment about an event you're having, or your business's sale or upcoming promotion can get you started off on the wrong foot in most Facebook groups. If you don't want to give the impression that you're just looking for a quick come up and that money and followers or li
Read More »