8 Google Signals to Increase your Website Ranking

Research shows that consumers believe that whoever’s at the top of the search result, even if it’s an ad is also whoever is the best in the area or the best in the industry. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s just what consumers assume.

So how do you reach the top?

To rank up on Google, you need to match the signals that Google is looking for. So what are the signals that Google’s looking for? 

1. Reviews

So it’s not just the number of reviews, but actually what matters the most is your review velocity.

In other words, how many reviews have you gotten in the last couple of weeks and in the last couple of months? Because you could have gotten a lot of reviews years and years ago, but what happened recently is what Google is going to take more into account.

 2. Keywords and your Google My Business Profile

So the best way to find out how we can rank is to look at who the other folks are in your industry. Because if Google’s already ranking them, then we can reverse engineer what’s working for them. 

 3. Configured local service ads

We just have to upload realtor licenses and some random things like insurance, just to verify that we’re a legit business. And then that way you’re going to show up in searches and it’ll say Google screened or Google guaranteed.

Your ads will appear as  Google screened sponsored, but people don’t know those are ads. Naturally, it’s going to pull most of the clicks just because they’re at the top, and its pictures probably going to get 50 to 70% of all the clicks. So ad copy it’s a pay-to-play game, easy to set up.

And so this is the game where your SEO and your reviews and your social and the links are coming in.

What happens when you have bad SEO, how will that affect your ads?

Ads are great way to get traffic immediately as SEO takes time. It’s like buying your vegetables at whole foods versus planting them in the garden. And there are pros and cons to both of them. Think of pain for the media as like renting a car.

You can rent the car, try the car, and see whether you like it. And then if you like it, buy it. So if you have a number of keywords that you wants to go after, they may or may not be good keywords and you might decide that you want to do SEO for them when they’re not even valuable keywords. 

You can rent the keywords by paying Google for them. And once you decide it’s good, then start creating the content, start building the links. Then you know that its going to work because you’re able to sample the keywords. So maybe it’d be a lot of effort to get to the first page, but you’re able to buy it temporarily.

And then maybe you still continue to buy it, but think of it as like buying versus owning. Does that make sense? Like you could rent the house, but eventually, you want to buy the house. 

Once you know which keyword is good, then you own that keyword. So rent a bunch like a Ford or Chevy, or Toyota,  and rent each of the cars for three or four days. See which ones you like and then buy the one you like, don’t just buy it before you get to try it first.

4.  Content

So when you have the regular search result, where you have the page title and the description, add other stuff like if you are a realtor, add an ad such as buyers start here, sellers start here. 

You can also add location, snippets, and review snippets.

If you’re a restaurant, then there’s the menu, all different kinds of related categorized information

And so that’s where search has really evolved in the last few years where it’s not just web pages, but you want to include all those other pieces. 

Need help with how to create that great content? Here is the Content Marketing Course that will guide you on exactly how.

5. Have people link to your site

So anytime someone links to your website, that’s passing some juice. Now you can be linking from the site that has no power or link from a site that has a lot of power.

How do you get people to link to your site? 

So anything above 60 is really powerful. 

So the more links you have, generally, the more SEO juice you’re flowing to yourself.

 6. Articles

So what do we consider a great article?

  • It should have a great title. 
  • Don’t plagiarize. Don’t use a computer to generate fake content.
  • It tells a story and it should be interesting so people actually want to read.
  • It has to be useful and not just jammed with keywords.
  • It has maybe a picture or two and maybe a video just to give more flavor because Google wants to show a mix of results.

So typically they want to show news, videos, and maps and they’re showing a whole range of different sorts of results. 

  • Choose Categories and Tags because that will help us rank. 
  • Don’t just repurpose stuff. 
  • Do not make ridiculous promises.

Other rules can be found here.

So what Google is going to do is they’re going to look at these articles. And look that it’s generating traffic and generating a great user experience.

What happens if people click back? 

If people click back to the search results, then that’s prompting Google that the article is not good and is not generating a bad experience.

7. Content Repurposing

Turn your videos into a different form of content such as articles, snippets and show notes. 

8. Boost Post via Dollar a Day Strategy

What is the thing that is working best for you now? What is already driving leads and sales? Get more of that. 

Build out all the properties and start dollar-a-day ads in your one-minute videos. 

Need help on how you can leverage the power of the Dollar a Day Strategy? Here is a course on Facebook for a Dollar a Day that will help you understand this marketing strategy in a deeper level and be able to take action!

In Summary:

Humanize the Experience

There might be guy’s on top of you when you search on Google but what you can do is take the next step and humanize the experience. Show yourself with your dog, when you are outside, on your trips. Get people on a two-minute zoom, Interview your customers, not as testimonials but via stories because that’s going to be way more powerful. 

Dennis Yu

About the Author

Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads.  He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations.You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel.You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.