Christian Website Development Secrets – Build On The Rock to Rank High

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” Matthew 7:24-25

I’ve written extensively in 2020 about Google Best Practices when it comes to Christian Website Development.  And one of the main reasons I’ve done so is in an effort to educate you on what is truly important when it comes to – not just building a website – but developing a website that: 

• Ranks high in Google Search
• Provides massive lead lead generation
• Greatly increases your business revenue and profits

… and is almost completely immune to Google’s major algorithm updates.  You can find those articles about Christian Website Development, SEO and Lead Generation below.

And as you read through the articles and learning modules, you soon begin to realize that creating an optimized website is so much more in-depth than what we see on the front-end of any website.  You begin to see how platforms like WordPress and Google have provided us all the materials and building-blocks needed in order to create a rock-solid and unshakable foundation for success with our websites. 

You may be surprised, however, when learning that the materials provided for this foundation are not all technically related.

Google has an enormous responsibility when it comes to those of us who use Google Search.  Not only does it have to work tirelessly at providing the best possible information when something is typed into its search-bar, but it has an even more important job.  It has to protect the consumer.

Therefore, it isn’t just superb information Google has to locate throughout all the trillions of website pages around the world.  But it must also be able to “trust” where that information is coming from. 

Ironically enough, when it comes to Christian Website Development and ranking high on Google Search, 2 of the 4 pillars are not technical at all.  Rather, they lean more to the side of morality. 

So what are pillars?

What I call the 4 pillars, are actually four unique attributes of a website that Google uses when considering its rank.  The 4 pillars are:

• Trust 
• Authority
• Relevance
• User Behavior

The only way the concept of online search engines can truly be successful is if there are people using those search engines.

However, the only way to get people to use, and to continually use a search engine is if the people truly trust the information the search engine provides. 

In order to achieve this trust factor, a search engine like Google must take our reality and turn it into a virtual reality.  More specifically, a search engine must take the authoritative, trustworthy people, businesses, etc. in our real world, and transfer them over into the same authoritative and trustworthy figures in our virtual world – which is where we find the first stumbling block of the entire search engine concept.

In a perfect virtual world, Google could entrust every website in the world with the same level of integrity. The only problem is every website is not created with equal amounts of integrity. Some are created with no integrity at all.  But even if every existing website were created equally trustworthy, there is still a massive thorn in the side of the whole search engine concept.

Have you figured it out yet?

The problem that persists inside of the search engine concept today is that not every person, place, business, etc… with authority in our real world has a website screaming proof of their social standing.  And even the websites that have obtained real-world authority seldom understand how to relay authoritative proof to search engines such as Google – with great Search Engine Optimization.

Therefore, especially when it comes to local search, Google is still starving for information proving who the local, trustworthy and authoritative people and businesses really are…

… which, by the way, means the sky is the limit for any hardworking business owner, anywhere, facing even the toughest competition online.

To help build trust and authority, it’s always good to include your Business Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) on your website; along with adding your business to Google My Business.

When it comes to your business website, the higher the relevance of your site, the more Google will reward your site with higher page rankings. And this is a huge factor that enables small business to rank higher than even major corporate businesses when it comes to local search.

For example, I have a client who owns a little boutique in Northwest Arkansas.  And inside her little boutique, along with many other things, she sells several different Name Brand clothing labels.  Amazingly, in local search she ranks at the top of Google in almost every category… even above the mega-brands offering the same products with much larger inventories.

How is this possible?  Because she isn’t a major corporation based out of New York or L.A.  She is a locally owned, trustworthy, authoritative figure in the Northwest Arkansas Community.  Not to mention she has one of the top SEO Experts building her website with SEO best practices.

Have you ever been looking for a specific product on a website, but ten minutes later found yourself so confused and lost that you just “Clicked” out of the site in frustration?  Don’t worry.  You’re not alone. 

Though Google is not omniscient; able to be present on all websites at all times, they’ve figured out the next best thing… so to speak.

By using Machine Learning and algorithms, Google is able to understand how trustworthy, authoritative and relevant a website is by the user behavior on that website.

With Machine Learning, Google can see how many users have visited a website, how long each visitor stayed on the website, how many pages each visitor clicked through on the site, and many other interesting statistics.  Data such as this allows Google to understand if a website is of good rapport.

For example, if Google is monitoring a specific website, and notices that visitors don’t stay on the site long and don’t click through to view multiple pages, then Google might have concerns that:

• The website is not user friendly, allowing the visitors an easy way to navigate throughout the site.
• The website takes too much time to load its pages, causing the visitor to have to wait.
• The website’s content is not relevant to the search.

… and these are just a few of the possibilities.

On the other hand, if a website is being monitored where the data shows visitors stay for a substantial amount of time, click through several different pages, and interact with videos, photos and click-to-call buttons, this is reassuring of the site’s authority, trustworthiness and relevance.

Therefore, it now becomes all too clear that, “Each website is known by its own statistical fruit.”  No good website bears bad fruit, neither does a bad website bear good fruit.

When it comes to providing the best possible customer service, you can now see how serious Google truly is at achieving its goal.

However, trustworthiness, authority, relevance and user behavior alone are not the end-all website qualities that get you to the top of Google. But they are extremely important foundational qualities on which to build your SEO strategy.

Thankfully, there are available resources that provide us even more definitive information as to the technical key factors Google uses to rank websites.

A recent article by Optin Monster says that industry studies show Google’s top 10 ranking factors being:

• Secure and Accessible Website – Does your site provide a safe and secure experience for your visitors, protecting their private information with HTTPS security certificates? Can Google access your website in order to see exactly what your website and its content is all about? Make it easy for them to crawl your website with a sitemap.
• Page Speed for Desktop and Mobile – Does your site quickly load pages, saving visitors time and keeping them engaged? Depending on the size of your site, you may need more server power from your web host, along with a reliable Cache plugin. Google also provides a free mobile testing tool to assist you.
• Mobile Friendliness – Is your site “Responsive” for mobile users? Most website visitors today are on their mobile phones. Before you invest in a theme for your website, first make sure it is mobile-friendly and responsive, allowing your website to be resized to fit the device.
• Domain Age, URL and Authority – Did you know that over 50% of websites that have a top ten Google page rank are three years old or more? Not to worry. A new website can still rank high in Google Search… even at the top. On the other hand, if your website has been around for several years, you can see the potential advantages.

Does your site URL have a keyword or keyword phrase in it, but overall has very little good, relevant content? If so, you may be getting penalized.

And of course, we’ve already covered the Authority of a website.

• Optimized Content – Is your website’s content optimized in such a manner that Google knows exactly what your website is about? This must be done with optimized key words and phrases in your page titles, content and meta description areas… and more that we’ll cover later on.
• Technical SEO – Much the same as optimized content, technical seo includes specifics like:

1. 1. Adding keyword phrases in page titles and image alt tags
   2. The use of header tags in your headings and subheadings, i.e. H1, H2, H3.
   3. The use of keyword phrases in meta descriptions, but also write the description in such a way to grab the searcher’s attention

• User Experience – Though we’ve discussed this previously, Google uses machine learning and artificial intelligence that allows them to see the Click-through-rate (CTR), Bounce Rate, and visitor’s Time-on-Site data.
• Website Link-Building – Do you have an active link-building strategy for your website? Link-building strategies consist of Inbound Links, Outbound Links, and Internal Links.
• Social Signals – Like with any other online data, Google gets to see a website’s content that is shared to social media and other outlets. I assure you this can greatly impact your rankings on Google.

For example, I once wrote an article on one of my websites. Within 24 hours, it was shared so much on social media that over 4,700 people visited my site. Do you think that had an impact on my Authority, Trustworthiness and Relevance to the topic?

Of course it did! And within 24 hours my article was at the top of Google in search results.

Connect your website to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and other social media sites.

• Real Business Information – As stated earlier, make sure your business (N)ame, (A)ddress, and (P)hone numbers (NAP), are listed on your website. Also get your business listed on 3rd party sites like Facebook. Get listed on Google my Business. Get in directories like YELP.

Now, these are all important factors when it comes to ranking high on Google Search.  However, it isn’t the end of the journey.  However, it is the incredibly bedrock on which to create, build and optimize your website. 

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And as always, should you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the “Comments” section below.