New Google Ranking Factors: 10 of the Latest Quality Guidelines You Must Heed
Google’s recently leaked Quality Rating Guidelines Version 5.0 may be one of the most important 160-page documents you'll ever read. Of course, not every website manager has the time to digest all of the rating parameters that have come and gone, so we've broken it down into this handy list of the latest Google ranking factors.
E-A-T: Expertise-Authority-Trust - Google wants your content to establish that your website is an experienced source of information on your topic; your writers are an authority on the subject they write about; and your website can be trusted to provide the information or service that it advertises or supports.
Establish authority early - You don't need a Ph.D. to be an expert on something. Google takes people with firsthand knowledge of something like living with Crohn's disease as a type of expertise. Just make sure you have a clear "about the author" section to explain why the writer is an expert on the topic.
Watch your use of on-page ads - Google gives lower-quality ratings to pages that have too many ads, place ads in the middle of the main content, or use ad services with malware or deceptive banners.
Use a clean design - Don't design your site to maximize ad space; design your site with user enjoyment and convenience in mind.
Be transparent - Google wants to know who's running the site and how users can contact you if they have any questions or concerns. Make sure that you have a clear way for customers to contact you for support or concerns.
Don't associate with sites that have a bad reputation - Google looks at the company you keep, and if you have outbound links that go to dead sites, known dangerous sites, or any form of malware or spam, your site's quality rating will suffer.
Add supplementary content when appropriate - Including high-quality supplementary content to support your text, such as instructional videos and pictures is another factor that Google uses to determine your authority and trust.
Fraudulent behavior and bad reputation are automatic poor ratings - Google's rating team has been instructed to give an automatic poor quality rating to any sites that engage in fraudulent behavior or have a bad reputation among users.
Do not auto-generate pages - There are programs out there that can auto-generate blog posts based on search trends and other data. These posts are almost always gibberish, and Google's rating team has been instructed to rate these pages with the lowest rating.
Include an "About Us" and "Contact Info" page - Older versions of the quality guidelines have only required these pages for sites dedicated to health, finance, or well-being, but now they are a requirement for all pages to obtain a favorable quality rating.
Google's Quality Rating Guidelines are a Lot to Digest – We Can Help
Those are a lot of guidelines and factors to take into consideration, and if you're feeling overwhelmed, don't worry. We Do Web Content, Inc. is here to help your business impress Google's quality rating team with total compliance with their guidelines.
Give us a call or fill out our contact form to speak with our content team and learn how our company can help yours exceed expectations when it comes to website quality. Call us at 888-521-3880.
References:
http://www.thesempost.com/google-rewrites-quality-rating-guide-seos-need-know/
http://www.mboresourcecenter.com/googles-new-quality-rating-guide-revealed/
