Top SEO Ranking Factors You Need to Know To Rank Higher

When it comes to ranking your website, SEO is critical in making sure your website gets found.

To know how to rank your website you need to know and apply SEO ranking factors Google and other search engine use.

First things first, what is SEO?

SEO is short for search engine optimization, and it’s the process of optimizing your website so users can find it in search engine results.

To make sure others can find your website you need to follow rules and guidelines search engines use to understand the content on your website. There are many factors search engines use to determine how to rank your website. For example, there more than 200 on-page ranking factors Google uses to rank your website. Furthermore, there are on-page and off-page seo, so as you can see it can get fairly complicated.

For this article, we’ll focus on the top SEO ranking factors you should be implementing if you want your website to show up on top of search engine results.

High-quality content

One of the important elements responsible for growing traffic to your website is by making sure you have high-quality content. Content marketing can be a powerful tool for websites, especially when it comes to search engine optimization.

Of course, it’s not enough that you have any old type of content on your website. You must make sure that the content is relevant to your target audience. Your content must be informative and provide answers to the questions your audience might be asking. Perform keyword research to make sure the content you create contains keywords and phrases people are looking for.

Page URL

Another thing that you should tweak when you want to optimize your website is the URL of each of the webpages. This is especially important for each of your web content because search engines can still track it. Therefore, you want to make sure that it matches the topic of your content. Keep in mind the role of keywords inside the url is not as important as it was before. However even if it’s not as important as it once was, you should still try to incorporate keywords into your URL since it gives important clues to search engines and users regarding the content on those pages.

Title tags

Another vital part of ranking pages in search engines is the title tag. You want your title to accurately describe what each page is about. I should include relevant information about your content, as well as the keyword you want that page to rank for. Finally, make sure that your title is descriptive, but not overly long. Google only shows 60 characters (Source: Moz)

Meta description

One part of the search results that you should optimize is the description underneath the title of your search result. This is called the meta-description and each page should have its own description.

Even though search engines don’t use the meta description as a direct ranking signal, it’s still important because it tells users what’s on the page. Showing users exactly what on the page, will increase click-through rate when users perform the search queries. Google uses click-through rate and bounce rate to determine if the page is relevant. Make sure the meta tags of each page summarizes the content accurately. Additionally, if the webpage that it is about to link to or is describing.

Mobile-friendliness

Search engine optimization isn’t only about including keywords in all the right places. An essential part of improving your search engine results rankings is your ability to provide an excellent user experience on all devices. One way to accomplish this is by making sure that your site is mobile-friendly.

Since a vast number of people will likely use their smartphones to access the web, it’s critical that your website looks amazing on the phone, as well as on tablet and desktop. Google mobile-first index now plays an important role in analyzing the website to see if it’s mobile-friendly and gives preference to these sites over others

Page speed

Speaking of improving user experience. Having a slow website is one way to ruin the user experience. Several issues can cause your website to load slowly including large images, too many plugins, poorly coded pages, and unreliable hosting companies.

If your web host is slow, you might look into different website hosting companies to see if you can switch to better, faster hosting.

Images and image alt tags

When it comes to your website, don’t make your content text-heavy. Y need to incorporate images into your pages. The web is a visual medium and having visual elements like photos, graphics, videos will make the pages on your website more attractive. They can also prolong the time users spend on your website giving Google another clue that your website provides valuable information.

Don’t forget that all images require alt tags. These tags help Google better understand what images are on the page. When adding images to the website, make sure to include alt tags that use relevant keywords to further improve your rankings

Internal links

When you create content, one of the things you should include in each post is internal links.

Internal links are links on your content that, when clicked, will lead to other web pages within your website. Having internal links helps connect your content and gives an opportunity for the search engines to find other content on your website. By crawling and following links Google can find and index other pages so they can show up in search engine results.

Backlinks

Speaking of links on your website content, you should also try to get backlinks from other websites. A backlink is simply a link to your website from external websites on the web.

Getting backlinks is one of the most important factors uses Google to determine the quality of the website. The links from relevant, high-ranked websites can propel your posts to the top of search engine results, and the more links you have the higher are your chances to get to the first page of Google. Getting links from top sites can be challenging, but it’s well worth your time if you do manage to get links to your content and you will see your ranking climb substantially.

HTTPS secure

Another important ranking factor that you have to keep in mind is having an HTTPS protocol for your website. The HTTPS standard ensures that your website is secure. Google now prefers https over http websites so if your website is secure your chances of ranking are higher. Besides users have more trust in websites that are more secure. So by obtaining https security certificate, your website will appear more reliable for search engines and your website visitors.

Sitemaps and clear navigation

It is crucial for a lot of search engines that your website is easy to navigate since it improves user experience. Therefore, you need to invest time to ensure your website is easy to navigate and users can easily find the information they’re looking for

Another thing you need to do is create a sitemap. A sitemap helps search engines find your content. If you use WordPress, you can create sitemap using plugins such as Yoast and then submit it to search engines to it’ll know exactly what pages are on your site. For Google, you can submit your sitemap in Search Engine Console so all your pages get found.

Social signals

Creating a strong social media presence will also help you improve website SEO since it indicates that your site is popular with many users. Social media signals will continue to become a more influential factor in determining the popularity of the website.

You can use social media not only drive traffic to your website, but also create backlinks and build your authority giving you more chances to increase traffic and rankings.

Online reputation

Your online reputation can play an important role in growing traffic. If you build a personal brand that is highly respected and sought, you’re more likely to show up in search engine results. Do a search for Neil Patel or Gary Vaynerchuk. They build their brand and now rank for thousands of keywords.

Final thoughts

Improving your website’s SEO is an essential task if you want to stand out from the millions of other similar websites. The factors listed here are just a few but significant elements that influence your website rankings. As long as you keep on top of constantly changing seo rules and algorithm updates and apply them to your website, your search engine rankings and your online business should continue to grow and improve.

About the Author – Andi Croft is a freelance writer whose main interests are topics related to travel, technology, and gadget. This is brought about by her passion for going around the world, meeting people from all walks of life, and bringing along with her the latest tech to enhance her adventures.