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Important SEO Ranking Factors
SEO Ranking factors help search appliances determine which websites should appear in search results and how they should be ranked. If you want your website to rank well in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), you need to optimize your online presence to take these factors into account.
The good news is that not all 200+ place factors are the same. Some ranking factors are more vital than others. When planning your SEO strategy, pay close attention to these 12 factors that have the most impact on rankings.
Before we dive into the main SEO ranking factors, it’s important to note that these factors can and will change.
Google’s search engines and ranking algorithms are constantly evolving. Some factors become more or less central, and some aspects are making known to or removed. It is important to stay up to date with the latest ranking factors and regularly use an SEO audit tool to analyze your website to ensure that you are following the latest SEO best practices.
The 12 most important SEO Ranking Factors
1. Site security
Google debated site security as a ranking factor in 2014. Well, this is one of the most important Google ranking factors on this list. Site safety refers to the use of HTTPS encoding. HTTPS encrypted websites have SSL certificates that create a secure connection between a website and its users. Adds an extra layer of security that keeps the information exchanged between users and the site.
Search engines want to direct users to the most trusted websites, and HTTPS encryption shows them that a website is safe. If your website URL starts with HTTP instead of HTTPS, your website is not secure, and you need to add an SSL certificate.
2. Traceability
Search engines can’t rate a website if they can’t find it. This is why the ability to crawl websites is such an important SEO ranking factor. The crawl ability allows search engines to analyze a website and examine its content to determine what the page is about and how it should rank.
If you want Google to rank your website, please allow search engines to crawl your website correctly.
- Submit a sitemap to major search engines.
- Check the status of your directory in the Google Search Console to see how many pages Google has crawled on your website.
- Correctly use the robots.txt file to indicate which search engines should go to which pages and which pages to ignore.
3. Cellular friendliness
Mobile device compatibility refers to how a website looks and performs when viewed by a mobile device. And also, Mobile optimized websites deliver a good user experience using a responsive design that tailors the content to look good on any screen size. With more searches being done on mobile devices than desktop computers (52.2% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices and continues to grow), compatibility with mobile devices is important to search engines and users.
4. Pages loading speed
Another SEO ranking factor related to user experience is page load speed. Search engines know people want to find answers as quickly as possible, so they prefer to display websites that load fast for users. Therefore, Slow-loading websites provide a lousy user experience. It is even truer for mobile websites, as Google announced that load speed is becoming a ranking factor for mobile search with its speed update.
5. User engagement
Search engines look to users for help in determining which pages to rank on. They look at how users network with the results to determine which pages are most useful for search engines. Google does this with an artificial intelligence tool called RankBrain. User experience factors include:
Using these metrics, search engines can determine if a search result is of interest to users. Therefore, optimize both your website content and search snippets to improve your user experience.
- High-quality website designs and graphics.
- Use an isolated, natural, and understandable site architecture.
- Use internal links to help users direct your site.
- SEO meta tags to create compelling titles and descriptions for your snippets of search results.
- Improve your content for featured snippets in search.
6. Quality content
Another way to increase user engagement with your site and attract search engines is to publish high-quality content regularly. Content is one of the most critical SEO place reasons. Search trains strive to achieve the best possible results, And also, giving the best rankings to websites with well-researched, detailed, and well-thought-out content.
7. Correct target keywords
Don’t turn a blind eye to content creation. Create content strategically by directing keyword research to determine which keywords to target and which topics to cover. Keyword research is the development of finding popular keywords that can drive traffic to your website.
Think about how Google ranks keywords to help you pick the best keywords for your content.
- Strive to use long keywords. As the popularity of voice search grows, more and more people are looking for long phrases and questions. And also, Use this type of research by finding shorter general keywords and long-tail keywords (keywords of three or more words) to target your content.
- Understand the purpose of keyword research. Search intent is the reason someone is looking (i.e., they want to learn, buy, or move on to something). Google will rank pages with content that matches the target of the keyword. So make sure you understand how different types of keywords in other parts of the purchase funnel correspond to different types of content.
- Terms of targeting within the competitive area of your site. Some keywords are incredibly competitive, and it won’t be easy to get rankings. Focus on keywords that apply to the competitive area of your website. Use the Alexa Advanced Plan Keyword Difficulty Tool to identify terms that are relevant to your competitive edge. The tool takes into account your site’s authority and highlights the keywords for which your site can rank.
8. Optimized content.
To attract search engines to your content, you also need to consider on-page SEO factors. Internal SEO is the process of optimizing every page on your website for a targeted keyword. By optimizing your content for a specific keyword, And also, you tell the search engines what this page is about and what criteria you want to rank it.
9. Structured data
Another way to tell search engines what a web page is about (so they rank it appropriately) is structured data. Structured data, or schema markup, is microdata added to the back end and tells search engines how to classify and interpret content (such as determining a business address, book title, recipe, or business address).
10. Unified business lists.
Search engines rank brands that they believe are the most trustworthy, authoritative, and trustworthy. The more a brand appears on the web, the more search engines increase its visibility when searching. It is why consistent industry records are an essential ranking factor.
11. Backlink shape
Backlinks are another signal that tells search engines that a website is trustworthy and commanding. Therefore, number and quality of links cement to your site does not affect SEO.
12. Domain age
You may not be able to control the final ranking factor, but it is worth mentioning. Therefore, age of the domain or the age of your website is often considered a ranking factor. Although Google doesn’t identify this as one of the SEO ranking factors, research has shown that older domains rank higher.