Maisie Lloyd
I'm passionate about recording the world, but most of all driven by creativity and collaborative environments. My experience revolves around the production of digital content, pertaining to graphic design, writing copy, and video and audio content.
Small websites are currently reporting poor visibility and ranking for their sites, whilst big brands still rank high on the search engine results page (SERP).
In previous years, dating back to the initial launch of Google, there has been a notable bias favouring the bigger more established brands, pushing content from their sites to the top of the SERP. Though Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan stated in a recent interview…
“Our ranking systems aren’t saying ‘are you a big brand therefore you rank’… The core of it isn’t really whether you’re big or you’re small, the core of it is whether you have the most useful, the most relevant, most satisfying information.”
The issue perceived
The perceived problem is that even small sites which deliver high-quality content can’t compete for visibility against established brands. However, this could signal that the searchers are selecting the brand they’re familiar with, regardless of how poor the quality of content is.
Ways Google looks to improve
Google continues to develop and improve its ranking methods says Sullivan “We don’t want it to be only the very big things rank well and I think in the last update we did talk about how we were taking in a lot of these concerns and trying to understand how we can do more for some of the smaller sites, the so-called independent sites.”
Sullivan’s open recognition and addressing of the matter indicates Google are aware and is actively looking to refine and update the algorithm.
Advice provided by Google
Sullivan offered a few nuggets of advice to small website owners to work on whilst Google continues to adjust its algorithms.
- Develop your brand – That’s not to say that you’re ranked on your brand, but creating a strong identity can help your business resonate with customers.
- Produce quality content which offers value to the reader.
- Continue to produce and update content regularly.
- Content creators are encouraged by Google to continue with their creative and unique ideas, as Sullivan states “Our ranking systems are trying to reward great content that’s made for people and if you feel like you’re doing that, then we’re going to try to catch up to you.”
- Optimising visual content for your site will help it run at a faster pace, improving user experiences.
