Google Webmaster Martin Splitt Shares the 3 Most Important SEO Factors

In the first episode of SEO Mythbusting, Juan Herrera asks Martin Splitt questions like, “What is a search engine?”, “How would Google know which results are relevant and which results are not?” These questions (and more) are answered on the 10-minute Youtube video.

Google sign

How to Determine a Web Page’s Relevancy?

Before we go to the important SEO factors, let’s discuss first on how Google select the pages that are relevant to the user’s intent.

Martin Splitt shares that Google has more than 200 factors, and it will scan details such as the title, the meta description, the content, and more.  Google looks at a lot of factors, but basically that’s it.

So, let’s get into the top 3 SEO factors shared by Martin Splitt.

SEO Tip #1 Nothing beats good content.

When Martin Splitt was asked about the top 3 important factors to consider, he discussed the importance of content.

He emphasized that as a website, “you have to have really good content. And that means you have to have content… that serves a purpose for the user.”

It should be something that users need or want. Of course, it would be best if users both need and want it. He used ice cream as an example. Everybody loves ice cream, but it’s important to use the words that people use when searching. People don’t go searching for “creamy ice cream”, “smooth”, “premium quality”, or “fantastic ice cream.” Users will just type “buy ice cream” or simply “ice cream.”

So, your content needs to say what you do, where you are, and how you are going to fulfill a user’s intent. This helps greatly when people are exploring for the ice cream near their current location. They would not know what specific ice cream is available. Thus, it is really important to incorporate in your content the language that the general public used when searching for products.

SEO Tip #2 Add meta tags.

So, what are these? Martin Splitt talked about the need for “descriptive titles and helpful snippets.” These are technical, but meta tags help describe your content.

He further said that meta descriptions allow you to have a little snippet in the search results page and these excerpts will help people select out of all the thousands of results handed to them. They can easily determine if one page is useful to them basing on the given meta tags.

He also shared that “page titles should be specific to the page that you are serving.” Having the same title is bad. It’s better to have “titles that change with the content that you are showing.”

SEO Tip #3 Enhance the website performance.

Making a website faster helps it become more visible to others. A swift page load time helps enhance the user experience. AND ALSO IT INCREASES YOUR DISOCVERABILITY! Martin says that website speed is good for website visibility. Google is concerned at how fast users can access a page quickly.

Martin Splitt shared, “We want to make sure that the people clicking on your search result, clicking on your page, getting this content quickly.”

There you have it, guys! These are the top 3 factors that Google looks into. I did learned a lot today. All thanks to first episode of SEO Mythbusting. If you do have the time, please watch their discussion on Google Webmasters’ YouTube channel.