Have you ever wondered what are the top Google ranking factors that can actually help boost your site and move you up the ranks?
Search engines don’t reveal how they rank exactly but many SEO experts believe that search engines use between 80 – 200 different ranking signals.
We don’t need to worry about all of these rankings, just a couple of these make up the majority of what really produces results.
Where should I focus my effort?
To boost traffic, here are some of the top search engine ranking factors.
Content
To rank high in search engines, you need to have content that ranks and answers the query someone has entered into a search engine. It sounds easy but actually creating the content is often something that it missed. A lot of people try to rank their homepage for every single keyword.
What you want to do, is show search engines that your website is about pages for each service you offer or each product.
Without these other optimised pages, search engines don’t know what you website is going to be about. That’s why having your content optimised is one of the highest google ranking factors.
On-page Optimisation
What you content is ready to fo, you will want to make sure it’s optimised so search engines know what to look for.
The first step is to make sure your keywords sit in your title tag and meta description. A web page’s title tag is the text in the link that shows up on the search engine results page. Another good step is to include your keywords and meta description tags. Writing a description can help convince searchers to click on your link from Search Engine Result Pages.
Look to include your target keywords naturally in the content of the actual web page.
Content Length
The length of your content also affects search engine performance. It’s known that writing content with over 1,600 tends to rang higher than those with shorter content.
Google tends to prefer long-form content that fully addresses the user’s questions. when writing long-form content, you will cover most of the things the user is looking for.
That being said, long content does not always rank better if the searcher’s intent doesn’t match.
Some queries like searches for recipes or quotes might work better with short content as such individuals are likely looking for quick information.
So how long should your content be to optimise search engine traffic?
Well, the content should be long enough so it providers valuable information to the reader.
It’s sometimes of benefit to check out your competition and see how their articles are ranking and you should look to create something which is better than theirs.
Search Intent
Search intent is another factor to consider. Even if you do everything right to optimise your web page, it still won’t rank if you are targeting the wrong keywords with the wrong content type.
Google tends to rank more articles over product pages generally. If you search right now for “best email marketing software,” you might notice that Google is ranking articles about the best marketing software, as opposed to a product page from one of the top brands.
Google thinks the intent of the search is not to buy software immediately but to figure out which software is best through reviews.
In this case, it would be very difficult to rank your product page for “best marketing software,” and if you wanted to rank for this term, you would want to match the content type that is ranking.
To evaluate search intent, see what types of web pages are currently ranking when you type in a search query.
Keep your content fresh
Content freshness is also a ranking factor. Google provides the freshest / most current content, so keep your up to date.
Inbound Links
Another important ranking factor is links, including links from other websites to your website as well as internal links within your own website.
Links are like votes for your website – If a lot of people are linking to your website, search engines see your website as popular and therefore can rank you higher.
Quantity Of Links
Getting a large number of links to your website is a good thing and can help you rank in the search engines if those links appear to grow at a natural pace. Generating awareness for your brand and publicity will result in other people linking to your site naturally.
You can also get more links to your site by doing email outreach and building relationships with other website owners or even asking for links.
Quality Of Links
Another important factor to consider is the quality of the links you receive. Your website can rank well with just a few high-quality links from high authority sites.
For example, a link from CNN.com would have much more value than a link from your friend’s personal blog. The reason is that CNN already has a ton of inbound links from other sites as is therefore considered an authority site.
Anchor Text
The anchor text (or link text) can influence your rankings as well. “Anchor Text” is the text that is linked. Anchor text can let search engines know what your webpage is about.
Usability
Another ranking factor that websites should pay attention to is usability and user experience. Websites that are not user-friendly could cause users to get frustrated and even leave, even if the content is good.
Bounce Rate
Have you ever visited a website, realised it’s not what you were looking for and immediately closed the window?
That’s called a “bounce” and in analytics, you can watch your bounce rate to make sure that it’s not too high.
If a visitor comes to your website and immediately returns to the search results page to click on something else, then this behaviour could tell the search engines that your web page is not a result that people want to see.
Page Speed
With today’s fast internet speeds, users are impatient!
If your website loads too slowly, visitors will leave before your site even has a chance to load – which is why having a fast website is increasingly important.
Search engines also like websites that load quickly, so be sure to optimise your website for speed. Slow loading pages frustrate users and cause them to leave.
Mobile-Friendly Design
Mobile search traffic (people searching on their phones) is now outpacing the number of people who search from their desktops. Making sure your website looks good on mobile is very important.
Be sure to test your website to make sure it’s compatible with various devices and web browsers.
Security & HTTPs
SSL are important for websites and help you rank by up to 2-3% better than if you didn’t have one. Secure browsing is particularly important for e-commerce sites that are collecting sensitive data like credit card details.
Conclusion
By focusing on these top Google ranking factors, you can start ranking and getting traffic from Google and other search engines.
Focus on creating great content, getting links, and providing a great user experience and search engines will reward you with the traffic you deserve.
Keep it original and keep it to the point.