From what we see on a regular basis is a lot different than what the so called “experts” say. In this post we will outline 3 major elements than we see consistently increasing rankings.
Link Building
No shocker here, right? Link building still works if done correctly. The biggest difference that we see today vs in the past is that Google likes to see a very diverse link profile. That means that links pointing to your pages need to have diverse text, domains, link types and more. Heavy anchor text links over and over just don’t work like they used to. We like to start with branded text, URLs and natural anchor text to build a strong base and incorporate keyword rich anchor text as needed later once established. This does make the process a little slower, but delivers the best long-term results from our experience.
Content Quality & Trustworthiness
Don’t copy and paste content from ChatGPT please. Real content, written by experts on the subject matter with a unique take is what we see ranks. If you are being lazy with your content you are instantly handcuffing yourself and rely solely on other ranking factors to make up for your poorly written content. We see so many sites with pages “crawled, but not indexed” in search console. Google can properly evaluate if your content is bad, low quality or just a copy and paste job from ChatGPT. Don’t do it, its a waste of time. Instead, focus on content that is impactful and trustworthy. This also doesn’t mean your piece has to be 2,000 words or more. Those days of content counts are behind us. Write good pieces and Google and AI will reward you.
Google Business Profile Optimization & Reviews
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but reviews really do make a difference. Everyone can optimize their Google Business Profile to be solid, but not everyone can get great reviews. I know its a pain to ask customers all the time for reviews, but it is the single factor we see consistently help rank you in local search alongside citations and citation consistency. With AI search evolving, it is more important than ever to show the right signals and that your customers are having a great experience with your business.
