The Basic SEO Ranking Factors
An SEO ranking factor is a website feature that specifies how well it ranks in the search engine results. All these ranking factors together create the search engine’s algorithm. But, the working of the algorithm is still unpredictable. Finding out the exact factors that influence the ranking of search results is impossible.
The Google algorithm is not fixed. It varies on a regular basis. The SEO ranking factors that decide the ranking order of search results and their significance change frequently.
Despite the algorithm’s secret nature, Google reveals the influential factors. This write-up is to discuss the significant ranking factors.
What is SEO Ranking?
SEO Ranking is the position of any website on which it appears on the Search engine results page (SERP). The ranking can suggest whether SEO has been fruitful.
The ranking of any website depends on various factors, which we are going to talk about later. These decide where should a website appear in SERP on the basis of the content it holds with relevance to the term searched by the user.
The ranking decides the number of visitors to your website. The higher a website appears on the search result page, the greater the possibility that it gets clicked by the searcher.
Different search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others use their own methodology to rank a site. Therefore, the SEO ranking of a site may vary with respect to the search engine you are using. You may rank in the top 3 on yahoo for a particular keyword but may not even appear on Google’s first page for the same keyword.
Now, let’s discuss different SEO Ranking Factors
Your Site’s Content
The leading SEO ranking factor is the content present on your site.
In order to find out what your content concerns, Google bots go through the content on your site. On the basis of the content, Google decides for which keyword the content should appear in the search results.
Therefore, while writing the content for your site, you must use the keywords you want to rank it for.
The length of your content should not be less than 300 words; it should be of a good size.
Additionally, your site’s content must be simple to read and understand for readers. The text written in active voice is generally more grabbable than in passive voice.
The readers must connect to the matter present on your site. Thus, be sure to pay attention to the structure of your text, use transitional words, use enough active voice and ensure that your text is well constructed.
In short, you must write optimized content for the search engines and the readers.
The Links Directing to Your Site
The next strong SEO ranking factor is the links on and to your site. Your website must have sufficient links from other websites to appear in a higher position in search results. These links are called ‘backlinks.’
The quantity and quality of backlinks matter for ranking at a higher position.
For instance, the links from a reputed and authorized website will have more influence than those from a low-quality site.
Internal linking is also an excellent method to enhance your SEO ranking other than backlinking.
Search engines will better understand your site’s structure if you have a network of inbound links on your website. Thus, they will provide a higher ranking position.
User-Friendly Site
More user-friendly websites achieve a good ranking. Sites with easily understandable, user-friendly content that permits and encourages readers to go through their site are ranked at a higher position.
Site’s Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is how quickly a user leaves your site. Your website will be considered more useful if users are spending time on it. If the user immediately returns to search engines when entering your website, this will surely affect your ranking.
Because Google considers the bounce rate of a site while ranking it. If users cannot discover what they want on your site, they will click back more quickly. Thus Google will consider the non-relevant and lower your search ranking.
Site’s Speed
Your site’s speed is another SEO ranking factor. Therefore your site should have a fast speed. The more quickly the crawler crawls your site, the more quickly it will index your page.
For a slow website, crawlers will take longer to access it. Thus, Google will index your site pages more slowly. And your new posts and articles will be displayed lately.
Therefore, you must work on making your site speed faster to get indexed more quickly and get more traffic. This will result in getting a better ranking position.
Mobile-Friendly Website
As most traffic comes from mobile users, your site should be mobile-friendly. As per Google’s recent report, SEO ranking is also based on the site’s performance on mobile. Google analyzes your site by switching to the mobile view of your site and considers its appearance and performance on it.
You will get a better ranking if your site is mobile-friendly, or else you’ll get lower by others. Is your website SEO friendly? Check here.
Content Optimization
With providing great informative content, you need to work on On-Site SEO factors as well. You need to optimize the page on your website for a particular keyword it targets.
Site’s Safeness
Site safety is also a ranking factor suggested by Google. Your site URL should be encrypted with HTTPS. A website having an SSL certificate suggests the safety of a website creating a safe tie between users and the site.
Search engines always want to offer a reliable site to the users, and HTTPS encryption signifies the safety of a website to them.
To Google, the site’s URL starting with HTTP only, not HTTPS, suggest the site is not secure. Thus, it provides it with a lower ranking than the sites with HTTPS. Therefore, you must get an SSL certificate.
Site’s Crawlability
Your site should be crawlable to search engines to get indexed.
Search engines crawl websites to scan and examine their content to find out what it is all about and what ranking it should get. To get a ranking, first, it is necessary to crawl it by a search engine crawler. You can submit a site map to the top search engines so that they can go through your website and index it. In addition to this, interlink your all related contents to make crawlability more easier.
The Mission of Google and Ranking Factors
The mission of Google is to manage worldwide information and to make it useful and available universally. People at Google are willing to create an ideal search engine to assist people in discovering what they want.
For years Google’s mission has remained unchanging; however, it continuously changes its algorithm to achieve its mission.
All the SEO ranking factors are decided according to Google’s mission.
Therefore, whenever you think of creating a website or want to revise the existing one, make sure to create your website and your marketing plan as per Google’s mission and the SEO ranking factors.
The Overall SEO Approach
Your site should be informative, unique, and best to appear in the search results. While we could not tell what you must focus on more because ranking depends on the search engines, and we do not know what it looks like on a website, you can work on every aspect to get a higher ranking.
We suggest not to use any tricks. Even though your site may get ranked quickly, it could not perform for a longer time, and you may also face some opposite consequences.
You must work on getting a higher ranking for a more extended period, and it requires a great SEO approach. You need to work on every element of your site, including technicality, content, speed, security, user experience, etc. This overall approach is the Holistic SEO approach.
This does need a lot of work, but it helps you get a permanent good ranking in search results.
What is most important of all?
If you are wondering which one is the most important of all, we can not exactly satisfy you, as every aspect of a website is equally important. However, we can say the content you are offering remains always at the top. Secondly, the links- backlink and internal linking also help to a greater extent.
Often people wonder what they should please more, the Google or their users? Is SEO important for satisfying search engines or the users?
Well, we would say both are equally important. You must work perfectly for both to get a higher ranking.
You can not only work for search engines because doing so will probably rank you higher for a shorter period, but when your users are not happy with what you offer, it will eventually affect your site’s bounce rate, and you will be lowered soon. We are not saying to ignore every aspect and just focus on users; we are suggesting where you can start.
Therefore, always keep your users in mind and along with taking other aspects together.
To Sum-up
The SEO ranking factors are the deciding factors for search result ranking. Your site must have great informative and optimized content with backlinks and interlinking, providing a good user experience for the readers. It must run at a fast speed and must be mobile-friendly so that fewer users leave it instantly. Also, your website must be readily crawlable and secure. Google considers every aspect of a website to provide its ranking in search results.
If you are willing to enjoy the appearance in the higher search results, you must work on every aspect and the above-suggested SEO ranking factors.