A client of mine recently asked me to fix some of the issues he was having with his site that were flagged by Google's PageSpeed Insights tool. That got me thinking about how we sweat the small things but don't give enough importance to the things that really matter, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is no exception.
"Build it and they shall come." That seems to be the mindset of a lot of business owners when they create a website for their business. Nothing could be further from the truth, though.
Building a website is a lot like building a shopping mall in the middle of nowhere with no roads leading to it. Off-page SEO involves building the 'roads' to your site, so that visitors can enter. Without any SEO done, it's unlikely you would get on page one of the search results and as everybody knows, if you want somebody not to read something, stick it on page 2 of the results.
Backlinks from relevant sites and a high click-through rate (CTR) are the only two things you should worry about when it comes to off-page SEO. Get these two right and everything is peachy.
Think of backlinks as people who vouch for you. The higher the authority of the folks who vouch for you, the more reputable you appear in Google's eyes and by consequence, the higher up you appear in the search rankings.
Google also looks into the relevance of the backlinks. If you're an educational company, then backlinks from universities, the Ministry of Education, the local newspaper would all be advantageous. On the other hand, a backlink from Steemit, although it is very high in the Alexa rankings, won't be as beneficial for your site.
Based on my experience, clickthrough rate has been one of the most important factors going into Google's decision on how to rank pages. If a high proportion of users see your site in the search results and click on the link, that signals to Google that your site is relevant for the particular search term or search expression.
When you create a new site or page, Google does a sort of 'dance', to test how relevant your site is for users. It will tend to show your page pretty high up the search rankings in order to calculate the relevance via the clickthrough rate that i mentioned above.
So what can you do about it? Simple. Tell all your friends and family about the new site or page you've created and if they could help you in their free time by searching for your site on Google and clicking through. This works wonders and i wouldn't classify this as gaming Google's rankings as you're relying on your real-world social credibility to generate clicks.
While getting better backlinks and improving the clickthrough rate to your site are the two most important things you can do, there are a couple of other factors that you shouldn't ignore. They are;
SEO doesn't have to be difficult or complex if you're running a legitimate business. Things do get a little more complicated if you're not willing to reveal yourself or if the product/service isn't very good but they can be overcome. It just takes a little more effort, using the same techniques.
