You might be surprised when you see this podcast is coming to ya from Copyblogger; they know they’re not technical SEO pros. That’s why Sonia Simone will be focusing on something else instead: answering the question, “What do the search engines mean by a “high-quality site”?
In her most recent episode, she’ll be getting to the bottom of what search engine bots are looking for when looking at your site. Check it out:
- (04:00) Some of the things (both simple and complicated) that can mess up your search rankings
- (04:25) What smaller businesses and individuals websites can do with keywords that aren’t overly competitive
- (07:25) Why you need to use professional-quality tools if you care about your web traffic, like premium WordPress, paying for site monitoring, etc.
- (08:45) What it means to have a site that got “borked by a bad SEO.” Think, someone good at sales with little technical SEO ability and implements problems because of it. (ie. keyword stuffing, buying a lot of bad links, etc.)
- (09:25) Why SEOing as a verb can be a red flag
- (10:45) The 10 factors that generate the “signals of quality” that search engines look for…
- (11:05) 1: Posting mostly original content (not scraped)
- (11:55) 2: A reasonable commitment to quality
- (12:30) 3: Freedom from stupid tactics like keyword stuffing
- (13:20) 4: Using the language of your audience (in other words, keyword research)
- (14:25) 5 and 6: High-quality sites are useful and true
- (15:05) 7: Why usefulness and truth isn’t enough
- (16:20) 8: Smart content promotion – start thinking about things like developing our professional network, about cultivating a community of publishers in our topic, about supporting each other’s work.
- (17:10) 9: Solid links from credible websites
- (18:05) 10: Breadth, depth, and richness – showing you truly know the topic
- (19:35) Other ways to get discovered beyond the search engines and what Sonia means by saying “Google is not the only game”
Dive into the full episode (transcript included) for deeper insights on these signals-of-quality factors.
