Content really is king (still)

And how to do a quick and dirty check on where your website ranks, and why.

Is it just us, or are a lot of people redoing their websites? Maybe over the COVID period people have been re-assessing their websites and deciding they needed a little work. And in Queensland the State Government has been helping some businesses with the COVID Adaption Grants to do just this.

This has meant the content side of NewsBusiness has been busy.

We were also gratified to see that a number of articles we have written for clients over the years have been climbing up Google to top 10 spots for relevant search terms, and even – in a few cases – the hallowed and elusive ‘featured result’ in a box at the top.

This just proves our point (laboured over many years) that great, relevant content always wins out in the end!

If you’re wondering how your website is doing in the rankings, you could just Google whatever service you provide + where you are (eg Brisbane) and see where you rank.

This method is a little hit and miss (your own website may appear higher to you than it does to others – Google knows you visit your own website a fair amount and thinks you like it, and so bumps it up), but it’ll give you a reasonable idea of how you rank against your competitors.

A better way is to use a free online tool called https://smallseotools.com/keyword-position/ and then choose ‘By URL’ and enter your web address. You can choose the Google AU search engine in the dropbox if you want.

This will tell you where you rank for specific search terms. You only get to see the top ten or so in the free version, but at least it will give you an idea. If you’re not ranking where you want to be, you’ll need to beef up your content in your main area/s of expertise.

Another quick check to do is to look at those competitor websites that do rank highly in your industry for common and/or popular search terms.

Have a good look at them. We’ll bet that the highest ranking ones will have lots of articles on their blogs and so lots of info on their area of expertise. Sometimes these blogs are hidden at the bottom of the page (maybe they only want Google to read them?).

And the more up-to-date the blog is, the higher these sites rank.

Google is simply assessing how useful these pages/sites are for people and judging those with more information worthy of bumping up the rankings. There are of course many other factors that determine ranking, but content is a big one. So, just choose your preferred search terms, and start writing about them!