A common question about your website ranking.

Let’s start with how the search engines actually work.

When a user types a word or a phrase into a search engine, the search engine looks at every possible website for matching results and ranks them accordingly based on over 200 criteria.

Here are the top ten factors condensed down to six simple statements:

1.  The overall page quality and keyword usage
2.  The readability and uniqueness of the content
3.  The overall engagement level of the page/site
4.  The domain name (keyword match, length, etc.)
5.  The quality of back-links to the page/website
6.  The social metrics of the page (shares, likes, etc.)

Whilst there are lots of minor signals in play as well, it is very important to note that the top three criteria revolve around your website’s content and how users interact with it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that results are not in any way “locked” into the search engines; the results are generated fresh every time a search is made.

Your rankings can literally vary from one day to the next…it’s perfectly normal. That’s a good thing though, especially when your site does not rank #1 for its main keywords.

Bottom line: The site with the best content will almost always rank the highest.