Four Pillars of SEO: Why Relevance Matters to Search Engines

By Josh Hiemstra

April 26, 2021

Our first post in this Search Engine Optimization (SEO) series covered an overview of SEO and the 4 pillars of SEO.  The first pillar to dive deeper into is “Relevance”.  When search engines such as Google use their algorithms to rank different sites, they want to ensure they give options to the user that are relevant to their search.  Search engines want to provide the information the user is looking for so people keep using their search engine.  

For example, if someone were to search for the term “mountain bike”, the user would be frustrated and potentially not use that search engine in the future if the results were all for road bikes.  This is why keywords in your site are so important.  You want to tell search engines what your website and web pages are about.  If you want users to find your “mountain bike” website, it is important to signal to search engines that your website is about mountain bikes.  To signal to search engines that your website is about mountain bikes, these “mountain bike” keywords need to be used in the content throughout your website.  It is critical to put these keywords in high value areas in your website.

Contact Simpler Site if you are looking for more information on what keywords to use for your website and the areas these keywords should be placed. We can help with your SEO strategy.

In the next post in this series, we will continue the conversation about keywords and how to choose the right keywords for your website.

Want more? You can read our other Four Pillars of SEO posts: Why Relevance Matters to Search Engines, Keywords for Relevance, Crawlability, User Engagement.

References:

SEO Resource Book 1
SEO Resource Book 2
Google SEO Resource 1
Google SEO Resource 2

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About Josh Hiemstra

Josh Hiemstra manages SEO and website maintenance, helping clients improve digital presence and drive strategic results. Josh’s background in medical and automotive engineering has honed his ability to thoughtfully analyze complex data and information. Clients appreciate Josh’s commitment to getting the details right. From complex audits to standard maintenance, they trust his results. Josh earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from University of Michigan. At the University of Michigan Josh studied user experience and user interfaces. Josh has a Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certificate, an Advanced Google Analytics certificate, and Google Tag Manager certificate and is also certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt.

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