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In brief: how Does Google Determine Relevance and What You Can Do About It?

To decide on a website’s quality, Google sends the crawlers to determine its relevance. In short, relevance indicates whether the content on your site matches the user’s query. The more relevant your website is, the higher it will rank in search results. The Husky Hamster Link Building Agency team tells how to succeed in this.

First of all you must understand how Google establishes the relevance of a website. Only then can you develop a strategy that will make your site more useful and, consequently, improve your position in SERPs — search engine results pages.

Years ago, it was enough to have a website with some appropriate keywords and basic information. Right now, though, satisfying the Google algorithm is more of an art, both technically and creatively. That’s where SEO and everything around it comes into play.

If you want to rank for specific words or phrases, you need to ensure your page’s or whole website’s utility in relation to given search terms. As such, you need to structure your content, monitor the utility of your content, and update when necessary in a timely manner.

If you feel like you need more information on the subject, join us as we go through the details below.

Google search algorithms are a complex system that relies on a variety of factors to establish the relevance of a website for a given search term. The main determining elements can be divided into two categories:

  • Off-page factors: the components that are related to your website’s position in the online world, such as backlinks and social signals.
  • On-page factors: the components that are directly related to the content of your site, such as title tags, meta descriptions, and anchor text.

That being said, let’s take a look at each category in more detail.

Off-Page SEO Factors That Determine Relevance

Off-page SEO factors are the ones that are not related to your website’s content but can still influence your site’s position in organic results.

Backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking components, and they are also closely related to relevance. In short, backlinks are links from another website to yours. Google sees backlinks as “votes” for your site, and the more votes you have, the higher your site will rank.

However, according to the Husky Hamster Link Building Agency, not all votes are equal. A backlink from a high-quality website will have a bigger impact on your website’s ranking than a backlink from a low-quality site. Additionally, it’s essential to get backlinks from pages that are relevant to your niche.

backlink example
An example of a Ringost article from a trusted site with a backlink

Social Signals

Social signals are various interactions that users engage in on social media sites, such as liking and sharing your content. Similar to backlinks, social signals are seen by Google as a vote of confidence in your business, meaning that you have a better chance of achieving website relevance.

As a result, you should create high-quality content that is engaging and invites users to interact with your website and business. But it’s not enough to just have good relevant content; you need to make sure that you promote it. There’s no point in having a blog post if you don’t share it on social media sites or if it’s difficult to find on your website.

social signal

Brand Mentions

When your website is cited or mentioned online without providing a backlink, Google will also take notice. Google’s crawlers will come across these brand mentions and use them to measure the popularity of your brand. The more mentions you earn, the higher your website will rank.

You need to remember, though, that achieving quality mentions is not an easy task. First, you need to already be familiar with your target audience so that you can choose the right tactics to get their attention. Second, you need to continuously provide value-adding content so that potential users don’t forget you even exist!

On-Page SEO Factors That Determine Relevance

On-page SEO components are the ones that are related to the content of your website. The most important ones are:

Content

The content is the bread and butter of search engine optimization. If your website’s content is thin and lacks quality, it’s unlikely to be considered useful by Google. On the other hand, the high-quality, in-depth content is more likely to rank higher.

To ensure content is of high quality, it needs to be well-researched, helpful, and well-written. Moreover, it has to be updated regularly and include relevant keywords without overdoing it. If you have too many keywords inserted in your content, Google Penalization can occur and your website will plummet down in the rankings.

Title Tags

Title tags are the HTML elements that indicate the titles of web pages. They are one of the most important ranking factors and are also closely related to relevance.

Google uses title tags to establish the topic of a web page, and the more relevant the topic is to what a user searches, the higher it will rank. That’s why you need to make sure your title tags are accurate and linked to the topic of your web page.

how Does Google Determine Relevance, title tags
This is what a title might look like in search results

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are the HTML elements that provide a brief web page description. They can also influence your overall SEO and, thus, your website’s position in particular search results of Google and other search engines.

If your meta descriptions are closely related to the topic of your subpage and contain the target keywords, they will help a search engine understand your web page’s content and boost your position among search results pages.

Headings

Headings are the HTML elements that indicate the hierarchy of the content on a web page. They help both users and search engines understand the structure of your content and find the most relevant results quickly.

If you use headings properly, they will help you improve the relevancy of your content and make it easier for Google to understand what your website and each subpage are about.

What to Do to Boost Your Website’s Relevance?

Here are a few tips on how you can boost your website’s relevance if you find that it’s lacking in that area.

  1. Monitor your website’s mentions and update your content accordingly.
  2. Publish well-researched, engaging, and informative content regularly. This will help you attract more backlinks and social signals, but you also need to link your existing content so that Google will better understand its structure.
  3. Engage in link-building. Make sure, though, that you get high-quality links from other websites that are relevant to your niche. The more links, the higher your authority.
  4. Monitor the activity of your website using Google Analytics. This will help you keep track of your progress and ensure that you are moving in the right direction.
  5. Know your target audience and their needs so that you can better target your content and make sure it’s useful.
  6. Work with professionals who can help you improve your website’s position across multiple platforms.
  7. Promote your content on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter so that potential users can find it easily.
how Does Google Determine Relevance, facebook

Final Words

Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving, which means that you need to be on top of your SEO game if you want to stay relevant. That’s why you have to understand how Google establishes the relevance of a given search result and work on improving your website’s relevancy accordingly. It is one of the most important ranking factors and you can control it directly to boost your website’s position in search results.

To make your website more relevant, you need to continuously publish high-quality content, engage in link-building activities, monitor your website’s mentions, and integrate other strategies. All this will make Google like you for sure!

About author

Editor of the Ringostat blog. Author of articles for the media about digital and big portals about business. Studied journalism at the Odessa National University named after I. I. Mechnikov.

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