When you’re looking to learn any new information online, where do you start your search?
Most people in Edmonton begin their search using a search engine, like Google.
According to research firm, BIA/Kelsey, 97% of people use online media, such as Google, when researching products and services in their local area.
When a person is using Google, they enter a “search query” into the search box, which is the combination of words that they use to find what they’re looking for. For example, if a person is looking for a local dentist, they’ll likely use any of these search queries:
- Dentist near me
- Dentist Edmonton
- Downtown dentist
The results they get in Google vary depending on the keywords that are used. Keywords are the key words, or groups of words, that trigger your website to be displayed in Google.
Once you see your search results in Google, you likely click on the first few websites and almost always on the first page. In fact, according to a study published by Advanced Web Ranking, 75% of all website clicks on Google are from the first page, and 33% are for the first website listing.
If your health and wellness website is not easily found on the first page of Google, your patients will have a hard time finding your practice.
So, how do you get on the first page of Google in Edmonton?
When a person types a search query into Google, they see three results:
The results that you see in each of these three sections are based on completely different factors. We wrote this article to help you learn how to get your business website found on the first page of Google using search engine optimization (SEO).
Here’s what you’ll learn:
What is search engine optimization (SEO)?
SEO is a set of tactics to increase the position of your website ranking in organic Google Search results.
How does search engine optimization (SEO) work?
When a person performs an online search, Google analyzes all of the websites in their database and presents them in their search engine results page based on SEO factors, such as link, on-page and behavioural signals.
What are link signals?
The quantity and quality of websites that link to your website has an influence in your website rankings in organic Google Search results.
What are on-page signals?
Any changes that you make inside of your website to increase your rankings, such as placing keywords in your page titles, headlines, image information, etc.
What are behavioural signals?
These are performance metrics that indicate the experience that your website provides to your audience, including your bounce rate, session duration, etc.
Let’s get started!
What is search engine optimization (SEO)?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making changes to your website and online marketing strategy to increase the position of your website ranking in search engines, like Google.
Being on the first page of Google is one of the most effective ways of attracting potential patients to your website, wanting to learn more about your health products and services.
According to Advanced Web Ranking, over 75% of all website clicks on Google are on the first page, and 33% are for the first website listing.
In other words, if your business website is not easily found on the first page of Google, your patients will have a difficult time in finding your health and wellness practice online.
How does search engine optimization (SEO) work?
When a person performs an online search, Google analyzes all of the websites in their database and presents those websites in their search engine results page.
The first thing a person sees are paid advertisements through Google Ads, followed by business listings in Google Maps, followed by website listings in Google Search.
Google ranks websites based on two primary factors: relevance and popularity. In other words, Google presents websites that are relevant or useful to the person’s search query and ranks those websites based on their popularity.
Google believes that the more popular a website is, the more valuable the information must be.
Google’s mathematical algorithms calculate the relevance and popularity of each website to display in Google Search based on organic search engine optimization (SEO) factors.
Many of these factors are similar to local SEO factors, but in a different order and a different weighting is assigned to each factor.
According to Moz, there are many factors that Google considers to determine the relevance and popularity of each website, such as:
- Link signals: inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, quality and authority of inbound links to domain, etc.
- On-page signals: presence of name, address and phone number, keywords used in the headlines, website domain authority, etc.
- Behavioural signals: click-through rate from search results, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.
- Google My Business signals: proximity of address to the point of search, proper category associations, keywords used in the business title, etc.
- Citation signals: consistency in name, address, and phone number in all citations, citation volume, etc.
- Personalization: location of a user’s city or country relative to business, physical address in the city of search, previous search history, etc.
- Review signals: quantity of customer reviews, increase in review velocity, diversity of customer reviews, etc.
- Social signals: Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Instagram engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.
Next, we’ll review the top three factors that Google considers in organic SEO: link signals, on-page signals, and behavioural signals. To learn more about Google My Business and citation signals, please read our article on Google Maps.
What are link signals?
When Google’s algorithms crawl the billions of websites on the Internet, links are the streets between the pages. Since the late 1990s, search engines treat links as votes for popularity and importance on a website’s ranking.
For example, a small business blog with only a few websites linking to it has a lower degree of popularity than Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that has thousands of websites linking to it.
If you search a keyword, like “optometry,” one of the first organic search results you’ll find on Google is from Wikipedia.
Websites that are considered trustworthy and popular are assigned a higher “Domain Authority,” which is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz.
This score predicts how well a website will rank on a search engine results page and is calculated by evaluating multiple factors, such as the number of links pointing to it and the credibility of the websites providing the links.
One of the most effective strategies to increase your business website’s rankings in Google Search is to focus on getting other websites to point links to your own. This has more impact from websites that have a high domain authority and are considered trustworthy.
Most institutions, such as governments, universities, and associations, are assigned a higher domain authority, as they have a high degree of credibility and trustworthiness.
What are on-page signals?
When other websites point a link to your business website, that practice is known as off-page SEO, which is any action that is taken outside of your own website to impact your search engine rankings.
In comparison, on-page signals are any actions that you take inside of your own website to improve your search engine rankings.
A central component to on-page signals are keywords, which are words that define what your web page is about. In other words, they’re the words and phrases that people type into the search box of Google.
If you summarize every element on your page – all of the text, images, and videos – into simple words and phrases, those are your primary keywords.
Keywords are the links that connect what people are searching for in Google with the content that your website provides.
For example, if a person types the search query “how to lose weight,” Google will display websites that use the keywords “how to”, “lose” and “weight”.
The keywords need to be strategically placed in several places, including:
- Title tag: the title of your web page
- H1 header tag: the primary headline of your web page
- H2 header tag: the secondary headlines or sub-headlines of your web page
- Body copy: at least a few times throughout the body text of your web page
- Alt attribute: the alternate text of an image on your web page
- URL: your website address that follows http or www
For Google’s algorithms to be able to effectively read the keywords on your website, they have to be written words. Google’s algorithms are not yet able to read rich media that is not written words, such as images, videos, Flash or Java.
What are behavioural signals?
When a person enters a search query into Google’s search box, Google is attempting to understand the intention of the person doing the search to display the most accurate website listing possible.
Then, when a person arrives on your website from Google’s search engine results page, Google wants to know if your website met their expectations, answered their questions, and provided the content they were looking for.
In other words, Google wants to know about that person’s user experience.
Currently, most of the variables that Google can analyze directly include keywords, links, and website structure. However, these variables don’t tell Google about the person’s experience when visiting and interacting with your website.
Out of over 200 ranking factors that Google analyzes to determine their search engine rankings, they all have one underlying principle: user experience.
The experience that a person has when interacting with a website is difficult to quantify, measure and analyze. Because these signals are too complex for our current technology, it’s not as strong of a ranking factor as link signals and on-page signals.
However, as Google’s technology continues to improve, behavioural signals that reflect user experience will grow in importance.
There are several behavioural signals that Google considers when trying to interpret a person’s experience when interacting with a website.
For example, imagine that you enter a search query, then clicked on the first website in the results page. If the web page wasn’t what you were looking for, or the page loaded slowly, or the content was poorly written, you’ll likely click the back button to go back to Google. You may try the second website and spend time exploring it further.
This tells Google that the first website didn’t provide you with relevant information or a high-quality user experience compared to the second website.
When this action is aggregated over billions of search queries each day, Google can analyze the overall experience that a website provides to people using their search page.
Google analyzes various behavioural signals to determine user experience, including:
- Click-through-rate (CTR): when Google displays websites for people in their search engine results page, it calculates how many times each website is clicked, and based on the amount of times that it was shown, it can determine the click-through-rate (CTR). This is one of the behavioural signals that it considers.
- Bounce rate: if a person clicks on your website, doesn’t interact with any other links or pages, then clicks to go back to Google, this “bounce rate” tells Google that your website did not provide the user experience that person was looking for.
- Session duration: if that person stays for your website for 30 seconds, then goes to your competitor’s website and explores for over 5 minutes, your lower “session duration” tells Google that your website also didn’t provide as good of a user experience as your competitor’s website.
These are just a few of the behavioural signals that Google considers when determining where to display your website in their search engine results page.
Conclusion
Google’s algorithms calculate over 200 ranking factors to determine their search engine rankings. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of tactics to increase the position of your website ranking in search engines, like Google.
Google ranks websites based on two primary factors: relevance and popularity. They believe that the more popular a website is, the more valuable the information must be.
Google considers many factors, such as link, on-page and behavioural signals. All of these have an underlying commonality: user experience.
Creating a health and wellness website that provides a positive user experience for your patients through relevant and accurate information increases your search engine rankings.
Having your business website easily found on the first page of Google in Edmonton brings new patients to your website and into your clinic.
How we can help
We’re Alberta’s only business and marketing consulting agency that specializes in supporting the health and wellness industry.
Our unique business and marketing services have been custom tailored to help you get your health and wellness website easily found on the first page of Google using search engine optimization (SEO).
To learn more about our search engine optimization (SEO) services:
