Is there a reason as to why some sites are ranking higher on Google even when said sites are not optimized, upon deeper inspection you find they have little to no back links to their site. How do they do it?
Lets have a closer look as to why this might occur.
Click Through Rate
As Google evolves, so does its code and algorithms, a percentage of Googles algorithm looks at the Click Through Rate of the website, so if your website is searched a lot and then clicked through to a lot then Google will rank you according to this as Google sees that your website is “relevant” to the searches.
The greater the percentage of people clicking into your website from Google the more “appealing” your website is compared to your competition.
On the other hand, if a number of people go to your website then leave your website by either hitting the back button or closing the browser this means that your content was not relevant to their search.
Age of the domain
If your website is a few days old it does not have the authority over most other domains, when you look at it from the other angle is if your website is say 10 years old, then it would have gathered many backlinks and the content would have been around long enough.
Simply saying a website is older doesn’t mean that you are going to get a lot more traffic than other websites, you have to work on this old domain, continue to improve the website and the content, ensure that it is fresh.
Give your website time if it is a brand new website and domain. This will take time but also continue to work on it and ensure that it is relevant and always unique.
Quality vs Quantity of Backlinks
Googles algorithms do not see if your website has hundreds if not thousands of backlinks, these algorithms look at the authenticity, relevancy and authority of the websites linking to you.
You could have thousands of backlinks to your website, but if these backlinks have nothing to do with your product/service or simply have to do with you as a company then Google will not “promote” your website.
Another factor is the type of website that it is being linked from, a .gov or .edu domain extension would have more authority than a .co.za or a .com.
Cross Linking Your Webpages
Googles algorithm basically says that even if you do not have the best on-page SEO or a ton of backlinks, you are still able to rank with a good cross-linking strategy.
This is crucial not only from your navigation or even your breadcrumbs on your website, this also has an effect from your in-content. If you have cross-links inside your content linking to other pages of your website, throughout your website then you will slowly see an increase in your rankings.
Content Is King
Ever since Google released it Panda update, Google has been able to govern the quality of the content you are publishing on your site.
A simple example is if you have too little content as well as duplicate content from a competitors website, Google will not allow you to rank higher. Plagiarism plays a massive role in content and your websites ranking.
Googles algorithms will look at the content on your website and then compare it to content on another website within the same niche.