Everybody wants to improve their ranking on Google. The internet is flooded with advice on how to improve your site's SEO performance, some of it good, a lot of it bad. However, instead of asking how you can make your site better for Google, ask instead how you can make it better for your users.

Google, and all search engines, have a vested interest in the internet. If someone uses Google to find something, and they are unhappy with the site they were sent to because the content or experience did not match their expectations, that reflects poorly on Google, as well as the site. So, Google has become very good at judging your content, and if you can provide what your users are looking for, Google will reward you with a favorable ranking.

When someone is searching online for something, they can approach that from one of two ways. Either they know in general what they are looking for, or they have a problem and are looking for a solution. You can use this to guide how you can create and organize your site's content.

Let's say you own a hardware store, and sell a bunch of tools, both online and in your physical store. Your users are your current and future customers. You cannot just think "I want to be the number one tool shop on Google", that doesn't even make sense. To provide the right content to people, you need to think about what exactly they are looking for, and what you have to offer.

Why would people chose your store? Maybe you have very high quality tools, or maybe your tools are reasonably priced. Perhaps you hire very knowledgable staff to assist shoppers, or you simply have a great location. These are all things that someone who knows they want a specific tool might be looking for, so you need to tell them you have it. If you just say you have the "best tools in town", you probably wont show up if I search for "budget power tools near me". So, know your customer, then write content specifically to help them.

The other situation is where people have a problem, are willing to purchase something to solve it, but don't know what that is. For my tool shop, I want to have content that answers questions people might ask about the tools I have. If I have unusual tools that actually serve a common purpose, maybe I will include a page or section on "why X tool is best for Y". If several customers have asked you what a monkey-wrench is actually for, that means people are probably searching for that online as well, so why not try answer that question too. This is why blogs and FAQ sections can work well for you if you use them properly. What problems do you solve for your customers? If you can answer that question, you definitely need that content on your site.

There are other things that play a role in how google ranks your site, but if you have a good web team (like us, of course) that should all be taken care of. Just know that the number one thing is content. Your content is the most important thing on your site. You can dig deeper by reading this post from Google, where they do discuss content and give some guidelines for people to follow.