The Google Webmaster blog published an article in which Google’s Maile Ohye officially explained what it takes to get a high ranking in Google’s search result pages.
Inbound links are important but content is even more important
“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s search engine optimization.”
Google’s Maile Ohye writes this about inbound links in his article:
“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance.”
Nothing new here. If many related websites link to your site, and if these links look natural, this will help you rankings on Google a lot.
However, links are not the most important ranking factor. Maile Ohye gives a concrete example:
“Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. “
The website’s content is mentioned as one of the strongest ranking factors. The inbound links are additional. That makes sense.
If your web pages are about microwave ovens but you want to get a high ranking for the keyword “used cars in dallas” ,Then you won’t get high rankings for that keyword.
For that reason, before you try to get links from other sites,it is very important that you optimize your web pages for the keywords for which you want to get high rankings .
Over 200 ranking factors analyzed by Google
According to the article , Google analyzes more than 200 signals to specify the position of a web page in the search results:
“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”
If you want to know if the ranking factors of your web pages are correct then you should analyze your site with
IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer. IBP analyzes all elements of your web pages and all off-site factors that influence the rankings of your website.
The report will tell you what exactly you have to change on your web pages so that all ranking factors on your site lead to a top 10 ranking on Google.
It’s a simple two-step process
Getting high rankings on Google is a simple two-step process:
1. Optimize your web pages for your keywords so that Google knows that your website is relevant to these keywords and your topic.You must optimize your web page contents so that Google can find out what your website is about.
2. Other websites must confirm that your website is about that topic. That’s what inbound links are for.
The article in Google’s blog confirms that you will do the right things if you optimize your web pages with IBP.IBP has all the tools that you need to optimize the content of your web pages and it also helps you to get good inbound links.