Google has recently released the full edition of its Search Quality Raters Guidelines, which is a 160 page guide that instructs those who are paid to evaluate the quality of search results returned by Google. This guide tells what Google finds valuable and what it would not like to see while evaluating a website; although it doesn’t clearly tell what the secret is to rank number one on SERPs.
How are websites rated?
Human Search Quality Raters do not directly affect search rankings; they provide feedback to Google’s engineers on the accuracy and validity of a webpage, which indirectly affects rankings. The rating scale for websites is categorized from lowest to low to medium to high and finally the highest. In order to rise to the highest level, what raters look for is –
- Satisfying high quality and relevant content – The content on your website must be helpful to the users. For this, your content must include sharing information, sharing media, sharing opinions, entertainment and selling products/services. Be very careful to avoid keyword stuffing, duplicate content and auto-generated content, because these elements count towards lowering your ratings.
- An expert, authorized and trustworthy author – Although the content of a webpage highly decides its rating, it is also the author that is considered an important factor. If the author is an authorized one, who has an expertise in the field he is writing upon and has a trustworthy name, it will highly affect the website’s ratings.
- Good reputation of the website – The reputation of a website is decided upon by the web experience of the users or the opinions of topical experts. This data can be acquired through reviews, rating sites, news articles, awards, etc. A good reputation will help you easily move up the ladder to the highest point.
- Functional and easily navigable website design – How well organized a website is, decides its efficiency and remarkability. You need to well plan your pages and use the white space effectively. The ads on your pages should not be distracting or take up a large amount of space. You should have a great navigation structure, which helps users find their way through the website to find the products/services they are looking for easily.
What other factors need to be taken care of?
Other than the primary factors stated above, there is more that you need to take care of.
- Apart from your main content, the supplemental content on your site also plays an important role. You must be very careful while placing links, buttons or ads at the top, bottom or sidebar on your webpages.
- Keep a check for broken links and take measures to immediately solve these errors.
- Keep adding fresh content to your site regularly and remove spam comments.
- Provide all your contact information details clearly on your website for those who would want to contact you in person.
- With the high rise of mobiles worldwide, you must have a mobile-friendly site.
If you require any kind of assistance in any of these fields, you can get in touch with Jain Technosoft, a leading online marketing company in Bangalore, who can help in establishing a good foundation for positive user experience on your site and raising your SEO level and ratings.
