Today I wanted to share about the belief that there is some type of “perfect page” formula that must be used to rank highly in Google Search. There isn't, and no one should feel they must work to some type of mythical formula....
It’s a belief dating back to even before Google was popular, as I wrote about when I was a journalist in 2000, in the article below. As was the case then, so it remains true now. There’s no perfect formula to follow….
There are any number of third party SEO tools that might advise that a page should be a certain number of words long or somehow constructed in a particular way for success in search. Third party advice, even news articles, might suggest some type of thing....
Following such advice doesn’t guarantee a top ranking. Moreover, such predictions and advice is often based on looking at averages — which misses the point that completely different and unique pages can and do succeed in search....
Google's key advice is to focus on doing things *for your readers* that is helpful. For example, if it makes sense for your readers to see a byline for an article (and it might!), do it for them. Don't do it because you've heard having a byline ranks you better in Google (it doesn't)....
Put your readers and audience first. Be helpful to them. If you do this, if you're doing things for them, you are more likely to align with completely different signals we use to reward content.
