Organic Website Rankings

When you do a search using Google first you type in the words you want to search for (Keywords) and then Google shows you a list of websites that relate to the words you searched for.  The display Google shows you actually contains three different lists of websites.  Sponsored Listings, Local Listings and Organic Listings.

The short version is that Sponsored Listings are something you pay for, Local Listings are something you are given for free and Organic Listings are something your website has to earn.  Currently only 5% of people click on sponsored listings, another 5% click on Local Listings and 90% of people click on the Organic Listings.  Which basically means that the most valuable place for your website is to be the very first Organic Listing in Google for keywords relating to your products, services and places you do business.

Organic Website Listings

As stated above no one "gives" you an organic listing in Google.  Neither can you buy one (Contrary to rumors and false advertising by some website companies).  The truth is that the only way to have your website become the number one organic listing in Google is to have what Google considers the best source of information to answer the questions posed in the search query.

For instance if someone was searching for "remodeling naples" that website that Google lists first is the one that Google considers the best source of information about remodeling in naples. Incidentally, if you search for these words in Google, one of the websites we built for a client comes up first in the organic listings (RemodelingNaples.com)

Google's Criteria for Organic Rankings

In the section on website optimization and other parts of the website we cover more about what Google's criteria are for a website being considered good enough to be listed at number one, but here for your convenience is the short list.

Google's Criteria (Short List)

• Keywords on website match the keywords being searched for
• Clarity (Is the website actually about a single "theme" or many)
• Size (Big websites have an advantage over small websites
• Text (Is it original?  Is there enough of it?)
• Broken Links (The fewer broken links the higher the website will rank)
• Time Online (Google gives sites points for being online for more than a year)
• Referring Links (The more "quality" websites that link to yours the better)
• User Actions (Did past visitors stay a long time or leave quickly)

Basically, it's possible to be the number one website without having the "perfect" website.  However, the reality is that your website has to be better than your competitions, have less mistakes and people who visited it in the past have to have spent more time browsing your pages than those on your competitions website.

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