How Google Works: Basics for Business Owners

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When it comes to online success, there's no question that showing up on Google is key. But how does Google decide which businesses to show and where to rank them? If you're a small or medium-sized business owner, understanding the basics of how Google works is essential to increasing your organic growth, which will save you money on marketing in the long run.

Keep reading to learn more about search algorithms and how they use relevancy, authority, and usefulness to determine where your business appears on a Google search.

Why is Google so Important?

Looking over a person's shoulder to an open laptop on a table, set to Google's homepage, with a cup of coffee beside the computer. — *Source: Firmbee/Unsplash.com*

According to Hubspot, Google has over 92% of the search engine market share and performs 5.6 billion searches per day for users around the world. But not only does it run 66,000 searches every second daily, but it also offers small to medium-sized businesses the opportunity to grow their customer base without spending a lot of money on marketing. That's because, unlike other forms of advertising, showing up in Google search results is free.

Of course, you can't just show up on Google — your business needs to rank high enough so that potential customers actually see it. That's where search algorithms come in.

What is a Search Algorithm?

A search engine is a tool that helps you find information on the internet. When you type a query into a search engine, it explores the internet for relevant results and displays them in a list. The order in which the results are presented is determined by a search algorithm.

A search algorithm is a set of calculations that determine which websites show up when someone types something into a search engine and in what order those websites are ranked. Simply put, a search algorithm is a set of instructions that helps a computer find information on the internet relevant to what you are looking for and order it based on importance.

How Does Google's Search Algorithm Work?

Google's search algorithm is made up of over 200 factors (or more) that determine where a webpage appears on a search engine results page (SERP). Fortunately, only three factors — relevancy, authority, and usefulness — are given a lot of weight when determining where your business shows up in a search.

1. Relevancy

Relevancy is about how closely your content is related to the keyword or phrase that someone has searched for.

If you're selling green widgets and someone searches for "green widgets," your page is probably pretty relevant and will show up for them if it's well-optimized. However, if someone searches for "red widgets," and your page is about green widgets, it's not as relevant, and you're less likely to show up in the search results.

Google decides that your page is probably less relevant since it doesn't contain the exact keyword they're looking for. Therefore, you can improve the relevancy of your content by using keyword research to identify which terms and variations people are searching for.

2. Authority

A person points at Google analytics data with a small stylus on a tablet computer, holding a phone in their other hand. — *Source: PhotoMIX-Company/Pixabay.com*

Authority refers to how trustworthy and accurate your content is. When evaluating the authority of a given website, Google looks at things like backlinks (links from other websites to yours) and whether or not experts in the field have verified the content.

In general, pages with more backlinks tend to rank higher in Google's search results since they're seen as being more credible. So you can improve the authority of your website by publishing high-quality content and reaching out to relevant sites to ask for backlinks. Neil Patel has a guide for identifying backlink opportunities that everyone should read.

3. Usefulness

Usefulness is about whether or not your content is valuable to the people reading it. And this is where things can become confusing. High-quality content doesn't equal useful content in Google's eyes. So let's explore that a little more.

If there is a blog post about hiring a freelance SEO copywriter written by an expert in the field of digital marketing, but it's jargon-filled, disorganized, and difficult to read, it will not be considered valid. In contrast, a post written by someone who is not an expert on SEO copywriting can still be well-organized, easy to read, and full of actionable tips, which would be considered more useful.

To determine the usefulness, Google looks at things like engagement signals (how long people spend on your site) and whether or not people are likely to share your content with their friends or followers. You can make sure your content is useful by writing clear, concise copy that addresses the needs of your target audience.

Google's Helpful Content Update

In August 2022, Google announced its helpful content update. The gist of the update is that Google is once again changing how it ranks websites. If a website has a lot of content that is not helpful, then that website's other content will be ranked lower in search results. Google is doing this to try to make sure that people see the best content when they do a search. This change will start next week and will gradually be applied to all websites over the next few months.

This update worried some folks, but it's honestly great news for businesses dedicated to providing clients and customers with helpful, high-quality content. You have nothing to worry about if your website contains high-quality, useful information. (Which it should be if you're following our tips above.) In fact, this update will probably help you rank higher in Google's search results since helpful content is now being emphasized more.

If you're not sure whether or not your content is helpful, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

Does my content answer the reader's question?
Is my content well-organized and easy to read?
Is my content accurate and up-to-date?
Does my content provide value to the reader?
Would I share this content with a friend or colleague?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions, then you're on the right track. Keep up the good work! Otherwise, it may be time to revise your content strategy or hire a professional copywriter to help you create helpful content that will improve your website's ranking in Google's search results.

Final Thoughts on Making Google Work for You

By understanding these three key ranking factors—relevancy, authority, and usefulness—you can start taking steps towards increasing your business's visibility in Google searches and bringing in more organic traffic. Keep these factors in mind as you create new content for your website and blog; if you focus on producing relevant, authoritative, and useful content that results in something helpful for the reader, you'll be well on your way towards increasing organic growth for your business.