Top 4 Ranking Factors That Impact SEO

Search engine optimization determines how high a website ranks in search engines like Google. Whatever type of business you run, whether it’s a consultancy or an eCommerce store, an effective SEO strategy is a smart way to boost visibility online, attract new clients, and grow your business and boost profits.

In terms of all these strategies, SEO ranking factor plays an important role. It helps search engines determine which sites should show in search results and how they should rank. If you want to rank your site #1, you have to pay special attention to these four factors that impact rankings the most.

What Are the Most Important SEO Ranking Factors?

Let’s Dive In!

Technical SEO Factors:

Search engines crawling and indexing all of the information that’s featured on your website. For this, there are a few core technical elements that need to be working correctly. For many marketers, technical SEO can feel daunting. But, if you have Knowledge of website structure and content management systems, you can quickly execute many of these ranking optimisations.

Technical SEO Factors That You Should Look For:

The Speed of Site and Pages:

Uff!! It takes too much time to load, leave it!

Nobody likes a website that takes time to load. If you consider this question to search engines, then they would agree. And that’s why the website with fast loading speed is considered a core component of technical SEO. A website with slow loading speed gives the user a poor experience. It will hurt your ranking in the search engine. There are many ways or online tools through which you can fix this issue.

Why need to improve the speed of site and pages:

• Provide a better user experience.
• Lower the bounce rate.
• Better chance of ranking in Google and other search engines.
• Convert more conversions

HTTPS status codes:

As per SEMrush, HTTPS now is an influential ranking factor and can impact your site’s rankings. It secures the connection to the website you are visiting. A place with a non-secure link means hackers/criminals could intercept the data you send to the site, like your password and email address.

Reasons for using SSL certification:

• It will add privacy and security to a website.
• Preventing tampering by third parties.
• Encrypting all communication and protecting things like a credit card.
• Build trust on your website visitors.
• Improve website ranking.

Ensure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly:

To improve technical SEO and site ranking, your site must be mobile-friendly. 70 to 80% of people search for everything from their mobile phones. If the site is not optimised for mobile, your search engine ranking could hit huge benefits. So, it’s good always to preview your site to ensure it works well on various devices.

Reasons to improve the usability of mobile:

• You can reach a wider audience.
• A responsive website makes online sharing simple.
• Freeway to rank better on search engines like Google.

Internal Linking:

Search engines use robots to crawl or spider your website. The robots follow links to discover content on your site. An excellent internal linking structure will ensure that they’ll understand the actual content on your site.

Source: https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-link

The necessity to fix this issue:

• Great way to improve your user experience.
• Increasing the ranking potential for each page.
• Boost site performance.
• Guide visitors to high-value and relevant content.

XML sitemap:

The XML sitemap is a list of all pages of your site. It serves as a road-map for search engines on your site. In navigating assisting search engines, sitemaps are an excellent way of letting search engines know that your website is available for crawling.

But if you have not created sitemap.xml for your website, it does not mean that Google is not indexing or crawling your website pages. Yes, sitemap sets the priority for the website that page is most important and which page is Google first indexing.

Reasons to fix XML sitemap issues:

• Easier to navigate
• Boost the visibility of a website
• Helps search engines categorise your website

On-Page SEO Factors:

On-Page mainly related to the keywords and informational quality of your pages. On-page ranking factors can have a significant impact on your page’s ability to rank if optimised properly. The most significant On-Page factors that affect search engine rankings are:

Keyword Targeting:

In terms of SEO, keywords range from single words to complex phrases that act as a conduit that connects your target audience with your site. So, it is necessary to always conduct keyword research. You need to understand what your audience is searching for and create content that directly addresses their search queries.

Title Tag:

Also known as an HTML tag that exists in the head section of each webpage. It reflects what the page is about and encourages people to click on it. A poorly written title tag can reduce click, and it will affect the search engine ranking.

Tips for Writing Title Tag:

• Search trending keywords.
• Write unique titles for every page.
• Title length should be 50 to 60 char.
• Be descriptive of what’s on the page.

Meta Description:

Meta descriptions have been an important optimisation point. It describes what the page is about and displayed in the SERPs underneath the title of the page.

Correctly optimised Meta descriptions improve:

• Click-through rate of your organic search results.
• Increases the quality of results.
• Perception of your website offers all change.

Heading Tags:

It is used in HTML to define headings of a page. They are defined as <hn> with “n” being a number between 1 and 6. This code is used to tell the browser the hierarchy of display content. Usually, they aren’t as critically important for your site rankings but play an essential role in SEO.

In addition to general structure and readability, heading tags help improve accessibility for people who can’t easily read screens.

Image Optimisation:

To make your website or web pages more appealing and attractive, adding images is a good way. It is one of the best ways to increase user engagement. But sometimes can even slow down your website because of the large image format or size. And its direct impact on your search engine ranking. So, it is good to optimise the image properly.

Its benefits:

• Increases ranking.
• Enhance the user experience.
• Faster page loading time.

Content Optimisation Factors:

In terms of ranking factors, content is one of the most crucial parts. Consistently publishing high-quality content on your site appeals to the search engine and boosts user engagement on your site. The most significant optimised content factors that affect search engine rankings are:

LSI Keywords and SEO Ranking:

LSI stands for latent semantic indexing. In terms of SEO, these keywords are considered as a search keyword that you want to target. They are accommodating and support your content to make it easier for users and search engines to know what your content is about.

Understanding Search Intent:

Search intent plays a vital role in terms of optimised content. That means understanding what people are looking for and want to know. Or you can say that it’s all about giving the best answer as per your target audience wants.

When you give them the exact solution in terms of their problem, they want to engage with you, and hence you will easily win their hearts. All you have to do is focus on four types: informational, commercial, navigational and transactional.

Content Quality and Length:

Content quality and length play an essential factor in SEO Ranking. Many SEO experts argue that longer content is better. The higher the average content length, the higher the spot in the SERPs. Here are some key benefits of quality content:

• Gain more credibility with search engines.
• Better customer services.
• Reach a larger online audience.

Off-Page SEO Factors:

These factors are referred to as the actions taken outside of your site. Off-page affects your site’s trustworthiness and authority by building the correct inbound links and social signals.

Let’s look at different off-page tactics help to grow your brand and organic search traffic:

Backlink Building:

In terms of off-page, building backlinks is at the heart of off-page SEO. Yes, because search engine use backlinks indicate the linked-to content’s quality, that site with quality backlinks rank better in search engines like Google.

There are two types of Backlinks:

Dofollow Backlinks:

Dofollow backlinks count towards SEO ranking. By default, links that the people create through their sites are Dofollow. OR you can say that these backlinks are one of the main factors that Google considers during its assessment of your site.

Why is it necessary to build Dofollow backlinks:

• It improves page ranking.
• Reduce the search engine spam indexing.
• Influence the target’s page rank.
• Attracting more visitors to your website.
• Boost the visibility of your website quickly and easily.

Nofollow Backlinks:

Nofollow links are links with a rel=” nofollow” HTML tag applied to them. The Nofollow links optimised tells search engines to ignore that link. It is because they don’t impact search engine rankings.

Content Marketing:

It is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. Content marketing offers readers informative and helpful material that provides insight and value. By taking a holistic view, content marketing spans both on-page and off-page tactics.

Content marketing attracts potential customers using blogs, eBooks, social media posts, graphics and videos and keeps them engaged. All you have to create a strong and effective content marketing strategy.

Why need to improve content marketing?

• Diversity of approach.
• Gain more trust from the audience.
• Help you build customer relationships.
• Boosting a site’s position in search rankings.

Local SEO (GMB & Citations)

Local SEO – the process of optimising your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. There are two critical Off-Page SEO tactics are GMB and citations.

GMB: Google My Business – a way that helps a small business manage how their business appears on Google Search and Maps. For any local business, GMB plays a vital role. If you consider the research statistics, 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information. In every five people, four people use a search engine like Google for local information.

Reasons to add GMB listing:

• You can reach more potential customers.
• Increase your brand awareness.
• Convert more conversions.
• Increases visitors to your website.

Citations:

It refers to a mention of your business online. It doesn’t include your business name but also your name, address, and phone number. And if you want to rank in both SERPs or as part of the map pack, you can’t ignore the significant importance of citations. And in terms of citations, consistency is the key to success.

Social Media:

It’s 2021, and we live in a social-first world. In truth, you cannot deny that 97% of digital consumers have used social media in the past month. Here, you can see how social media plays an important role. It is used as a type of search or an answer engine.

Several social media platforms where you can create your business profile to reach your target audience and convert more conversions. A few of them are Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. All you have to do is maintain a strong presence, communicate professionally with your target audience, and answer their queries.