What is Google Indexing Ranking and How Can it Help Your SEO?
Unless you just discovered the internet yesterday, you probably already know that ranking well in Google is important for your website. The golden standard is for your website to be at the top of search results when potential customers are scouring the internet for related information or services… but that’s not going to happen if you’re not ranking well with Google.
If you’re starting to break out in a cold sweat, we’re here to tell you: don’t panic. While it might sound scary, understanding Google Indexing Ranking doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ll take you through a breakdown of how Google indexes websites, how they rank the information they index, and how you can improve your ranking to boost SEO and get your website in front of potential customers.
How Do Search Engines Work?
Before we get to the fun stuff, it’s worth taking a moment to cover the basics. Search Engines, like Google, work by essentially performing 3 functions (Moz).
Crawling
This refers to the process of web crawlers, also referred to as bots or spiders, that search through URLs on the internet and comb through the code of any content they find.
Indexing
Once the bots have found content, they store and organize it within an index. Once a webpage has been indexed by Google, it can be displayed in search results. If a webpage is not indexed, it’s as good as invisible.
Ranking
The last step is ranking the information stored in the index according to what is most relevant to a search query. Search engines are built around the idea of presenting the best possible information to answer the question posed by the search. Therefore, information in the index will be ordered from most relevant, to least relevant.
What is Google Indexing Ranking?
Now that you understand the basics of how search engines work, this term may sound self-explanatory. Google Indexing Ranking is how highly an indexed website page ranks for relevant search results. This can be further broken down by specific keyword searches. This metric is how Google decides how relevant your webpage is to a search query, and how likely it is that your content will provide the best answer to the searcher’s question.
The question that logically follows is probably: how do I improve my website’s Google Indexing Ranking? If you’re looking for a magic bullet, we hate to break it to you but there is no such thing. Ranking well within a search engine’s index is comprised of multiple factors, the biggest of which we will cover below.
Get Your Website Indexed By Google
Getting on the index is the first, obvious step. If Google doesn’t know your website exists, neither will anyone else. This is because if your website isn’t indexed by Google, it will not appear in search results at all (WebFX).
How To Get Indexed
- Wait for Google to crawl your website.
- Submit your sitemap directly to Google through Google Search Console. (We recommend being proactive and doing this).
Optimize Your Website
Once you’ve submitted your sitemap to Google it’s a bit of a waiting game until their bots get around to crawling it. In the meantime, you can give your site its best chance of being indexed by making the following tweaks.
Provide Quality Content
All your content should be valuable to the end user and relevant to your business. Remember when we said that Google ranks according to whether your content provides the best possible answer to a searcher’s question? Make sure your content IS that best answer and avoid duplicated content across multiple pages.
Make Navigation Easy
Your website should be easy to navigate, both for the user and the Google crawlers. Check for broken links, pages that aren’t linked to anything, and text contained within images (more on that in a second). All indexed pages should be connected and linked to one another.
Don’t Hide Relevant Content
Robot crawlers can’t see pictures, so the version of your website that they are crawling is only text and code (no offense to your pretty colours and graphics). So, if you’re placing important information like your business’s name, address, or phone number within an image, the crawlers will not find it and it will not appear in searches. (Those “I am not a robot” verification tests with traffic lights suddenly make a lot more sense now, don’t they?)
Check Your Meta Tags
Check through your website to ensure you don’t have any pages mistakenly marked as ‘noindex’ or ‘non-canonical’ – which means they won’t be indexed or appear in search results.
So long as your website avoids sending up any red flags to Google, the crawlers will determine what your website is about and add it to the search index.
How Does Google Indexing Ranking Help Your SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving a website to gain more visibility and rank higher on search engines. Content is then further optimized for relevant keywords so that Google can index it higher in response to specific search queries.
Having a healthy Google Indexing Ranking is essential for improving your website’s SEO. Think of it as the foundation upon which additional SEO techniques are added to boost a website’s visibility.
3 Elements Of A High Ranking Website
As you can see, Google Indexing Ranking and SEO work hand-in-hand to determine your website’s spot in search engine results. It takes consistent work on all fronts to build a high-ranking website, and there’s no quick-fix solutions or hacks to get there.
When you combine technical SEO, off-page SEO, and on-page SEO together you’ll have yourself a website that users will love to visit, and search engines will love to rank.
Technical SEO
The technical side of things is the backbone of what we’ve discussed in this post. These ‘under-the-hood’ aspects are the foundation of a high-ranking website. This includes the meta-tags, user experience and navigation, along with all the other factors that impact indexing and ranking. To keep things simple, good Google Indexing Ranking is the goal of technical SEO.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page optimization is the process of building your website’s authority. This includes acquiring and managing backlinks to relevant authoritative sources (websites that are already highly ranked) to boost site authority and topical relevance. This tells Google that you are a trusted source and therefore provide accurate and informative content for users.
On-Page SEO
Your on-page SEO is the habit of consistently creating valuable content that is optimized for relevant terms and keywords. Remember, you want to provide your users with the best possible answer to their question, all while remaining crawlable by search engines. This means consistent content production (‘freshness’ is a big ranking factor), utilizing proper headings and sub-headings (such as H1, H2, H3, etc.) so your content is easy to read, and the consistent use of relevant keywords that someone might use in their search.
Looking for more ideas to improve your SEO? Check out our roundup of 6 Buzzworthy SEO Trends to Improve Your Ranking Impact.
Need Help?
Do you need help getting your website indexed by Google? Or maybe you’re looking to rank higher in search results? Call our team of experts at 1-877-563-0459 or send us a message to chat. We would love to work with you to improve your website’s ranking and SEO.
