It’s no secret that Top SEO Ranking Factors are essential to achieving the desired ranking on Google. However, Top SEO Ranking Factors are not static and can change with time or algorithm updates. At Search Optimization Hub, we aim to provide you with up-to-date Top SEO Ranking Factors so you can stay on top of your game.
This article will discuss 200+ Top SEO Ranking Factors for search engines like Google and Bing!
Content is one of the top factors that search engines like Google and Bing look at when determining how to rank a website. Content provides value, improves SEO rankings, builds stronger relationships with consumers, increases engagement time on your site, and allows for more targeted advertising opportunities by having ads relevant to what users are searching for.
You can use paid search ads to advertise your business on a go-to search engine. But also, do not forget about working on getting an organic ranking. When you have both, you will see results.
Search engines think about a website in a different way than people do. You cannot control how they work, but you can improve your website. SEO is when you make sure that Google thinks your website is good. It is about making the site suitable for Google to find and putting it on their list of websites to show people searching for websites like yours.
What are SEO ranking factors?
Search engine optimization makes your website rank as high in organic search results as possible. When we talk about SEO, it’s important to remember that there are unpaid and paid options for ranking higher on Google or other popular websites like Bing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to various techniques webmasters use with varying levels of expertise who wish their sites to show up at top spots during user searches – often referred to simply as “Google.” Organic means doing without paying extra, whereas PPC stands for “pay-per click” advertising, including pay-per-click and pay-for-placement.
Using various algorithms and metrics, Google ranks sites based on essential qualities in a page. A website has many ways to have good content. First, it’s necessary to keep the information fresh. Then, if you want more people to see your site, try new strategies.
Types of Google SEO ranking factors
Before we get into the top 10 Google ranking factors you may use to improve your website’s pages, discuss the various sorts. Marketers frequently speak about on- and off-page ranking components, but there are three categories:
- On-page SEO ranking factors are mainly related to your pages’ keywords and informational quality.
- Off-page SEO ranking factors: These are known as backlinks. They generate by people linking to your site from other places on the internet. Google counts them and other sites on which you have links.
- Technical SEO ranking factors are data points Google gathers on your website. They include how fast it loads, whether or not there are broken links, and more.
Now that you know about the different categories of SEO ranking factors, let’s dive into improving organic rankings.
What is the difference between on-page SEO ranking, off-page SEO ranking, and technical SEO ranking factors?
Search engine optimization refers to various techniques used by webmasters with varying levels of expertise who wish their sites to show up at top spots during user searches – often referred to simply as “Google.”
Using various algorithms and metrics, Google ranks pages based on essential qualities in a page.
On-page SEO Ranking Factors
There are several on-page optimization aspects that Google takes into account when determining your website’s search engine rank, including meta tags, keyword placement, and content.
Some of the most significant on-page SEO ranking factors include:
Title Tag: A title tag is part of a webpage’s code that tells search engines keywords and phrases to index. The more your keywords appear in your page titles, the higher you will rank for those terms when people look them up online via Google or other major search engines.
Meta Tags: Meta tags are HTML codes that provide additional information about your website. While meta description is not a direct ranking factor, it can use by Google to display relevant content snippets for searchers before they visit the page.
Anchor Text: A hyperlink’s anchor text is what you click on when you visit the webpage. SEO is essential because Google considers what keywords are used in anchor text when determining how relevant that site is to your search query.
Keyword Placement: The position of a keyword on a page can influence its ranking potential, so it’s good practice to place your most crucial phrases at the beginning of your web content.
Content: The quality and relevance of a page’s subject matter are the most important on-page ranking factors. Providing information that people want to read will improve organic search rankings and increase engagement and conversions.
Now that we’ve covered some general tips for improving website SEO through on-page optimization, we can move to off-page ranking factors.
Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors
Off-Page, SEO Ranking Factors include backlinks and social media mentions – which all boil down to how many people talk about your business online. The more often you’re linked to other sites with authority, the more popular your pages become on social media, which will improve organic rankings!
Backlinks are essential Google ranking factors because they signal trust to search engines. When another site with authority links to an article you’ve written, it gives off the impression that your content is trustworthy and authoritative. It can then lead to improved rankings for your page.
Social Media mentions are another SEO ranking factor because they’re considered an expression of trust in the eyes of Google. Whenever someone posts about you on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, it signals that your brand is reputable and trustworthy – which can help organic rankings!
Technical SEO ranking factors
A couple of technical aspects you should focus on concerning online marketing would be ensuring that your website loads quickly by optimizing images and code and avoiding broken links. The speed at which your site loads is an essential factor in how Google ranks it, so you need to ensure that this information is optimized.
Top SEO Ranking Factors
Search Optimization is a changing field. It changes a lot. Google keeps changing it, so you can’t keep up with everything. Just make sure to know what’s going on, and try your best!
- 200+ SEO ranking factors help search engines determine which sites should show in a user’s results and how they rank. If you want your site to take the top spots on SERPs, it needs to optimize for these particularities – this will ensure high visibility of one’s content and increased traffic from relevant keywords!
- The good news is that not all 200+ ranking criteria are created equal. Some factors are more significant than others. When developing your SEO strategy, focus on these factors that have the most significant impact on rankings.
We will look at improving your website’s search engine result page (SERP) ranking by optimizing it for ten critical factors.
- Domain Factors
- Site-Level Factors
- Crawlability
- Technical SEO
- Mobile-Friendliness
- Page Load Speed
- Optimized Content
- Links
- Backlink Factors
- Social Signals
Now we discuss details about these top SEO ranking factors. Let drive-in:
Domain Factors
Did you know that over 60% of the sites with a top ten Google search ranking are three years old or more? Data from an Ahrefs study on two million pages suggests very few websites less than one year old achieve this milestone.
The domain name is essential. Though Google penalizes exact-match domains (those where the target keyword is in the URL), that penalty can avoid with research and care to make your site seem valuable, relevant high quality – all things we talked about earlier!
Not sure if you should go for an “exact match” or not?
Top Domain Factors
- Domain Age: The age of a website’s domain is one of the most critical factors in SEO ranking success and how it affects your business and brand online. Google’s Matt Cutts has said that “all other things being equal,” an older domain will likely beat out a newer one when pitted against each other in a SERP.
- Domain Authority: The domain authority is the overall power and strength of your website’s domain, which considers several factors like page rank (which we’ll discuss later) and link quantity & quality with an emphasis on trusted links that come from high-authority websites.
- Domain Trust Flow: Domain trust flow is a metric that looks at the quality of the links coming into your website from other websites and “trusted” domains across the web. It can affect how Google ranks certain pages within your website and your overall domain authority.
- Page Authority: Page authority is a metric that measures the strength of your web pages.
- Generic Top-Level Domains: A gTLD refers to a TLD that’s not an extension for any specific country; e.g., .com and .org are examples of gTLDs.
- Keyword Appears in Top Level Domain: Having a keyword in your domain name doesn’t give you the SEO boost it used to. But it still acts as a relevancy signal.
- Domain length: Domain length is also significant.
- Keyword in Subdomain: Moz’s expert panel agrees that a keyword appearing in the subdomain can boost rankings.
- Domain History: A site with volatile ownership or several drops may tell Google to “reset” the site’s history, negating links pointing to the domain. Or, in some instances, a penalized domain may carry the penalty over to the new owner.
- Exact Match Domain: Exact Match Domains probably have little to no direct SEO benefit. But if your EMD happens to be a low-quality site, it’s vulnerable to the EMD update.
- Public vs. Private WhoIs: Private WhoIs information may signify “something to hide.”
- Penalized WhoIs Owner: If Google identifies a particular person as a spammer, it makes sense that they would scrutinize other sites owned by that person.
- Country TLD extension: Having a Country Code Top Level Domain (.cn, .pt, .ca) can sometimes help the site rank for that particular country… but it can limit the site’s ability to rank globally.
Site-Level Factors
The first step is developing a good SEO strategy for online success. Search engine optimization is all about matching your content with keywords and phrases. You can do this by using the right words on your website, like navigation and sitemaps, which people might not think of as SEO. However, they play a role in ensuring visitors find what they are looking for on your site.
We’ve compiled this list, so here’s how each SEO ranking factor affects site-level Search Engine Optimization.
Content Value
You can add a text or HTML message to explain the content. It should be helpful information for your visitors and help guide them through their purchasing decisions. If it doesn’t, they will leave your website without making an order! We can write blog post content for your website. We know that you do not want poor-quality blog posts on your website.
Contact Us Page
Your “Contact Us” page is essential for search engine optimization (SEO). Google prefers areas with detailed contact information to make businesses seem reputable and knowledgeable. In addition, contact information can help mobile users find your nearby businesses for their searches. To improve your reputation on all devices, including desktops, you need to provide a contact section with an email address so people can give feedback or contact you if needed.
Site Architecture and Navigation
Site architecture and navigation should be intuitive and straightforward. The website is designed to find pages by search engines and for visitors to find their way around easily.
Creating pillar pages is an excellent way to organize your website and make it easier for visitors or Google alike. When you create these categories, like “Articles,” each can be broken down into subtopics that will lead them in a new direction when clicked on. In addition, it makes the content more accessible because different people may search under various keywords depending on what they’re interested in at any given time!
The benefits don’t stop there. For example, if someone is looking for a particular article and does not find it, they can look in the list of numbered subsections. Likewise, someone with a specific question will quickly find it without searching the whole page.
As a result, everything is easier and faster! This organization makes it simpler for robots to index your content correctly for Google or other search engines that keep track of page numbers and article titles. As a result, users will search more effectively and find what they’re looking for without sifting through unnecessary information.
Sitemap
Including a sitemap is the best way to boost your SEO. A sitemap will help search engines index your pages more easily and thoroughly, allowing you to rank higher for specific keywords or terms relevant to what types of products/services they offer on their website. When creating one, has advantages during navigation. If there’s an issue within Google Search Console, having visible links on every page helps diagnose any possible errors before things get too late!
Site Security
While encryption is vital to Google, they don’t want you using it as an excuse for not being able to rank well. Encrypted sites are usually found with the HTTPS rather than HTTP protocol which makes them appear more trustworthy and safe from prying eyes – but remember that this only works when there’s equal competition between two otherwise related websites!
Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation is a great way to boost your SEO. When you make your website, create an accessible site structure for Google to find. The best way to do this is by using a site structure like breadcrumbs. It helps clients looking on Google knows where they are and what they can do there.
Usability
The best way to get a high ranking on Google is by making your website mobile-friendly. For example, you can make your site easier by adding features that make it easier for people. And if google updates its rankings, they will consider the ease of your site when looking at how high your site ranks.
The input talks about how if you have an un-userfriendly interface or complex navigation process penalized with fewer visits & higher bounce rates, which ultimately affects SEO rankings over the long term. Adding breadcrumbs navigation, improving usability and other factors helps with improved search engine rankings. The input also talks about including a sitemap on your website, which is the best way to boost SEO.
Crawlability
Let us look at how search engines discover and index web pages to understand these terms.
To learn about any new (or updated) page, they use what’s known as crawlers bots, whose aim is to follow links on the internet with only one goal in mind: website discovery for their clients (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, Baidu). Some crawler bots are only interested in indexing content to make it available for users searching on specific keywords (i.e., user-oriented crawling). In contrast, others take a more proactive approach and find new links to crawl and add to the search engine’s link database (i.e., link-oriented crawling).
What is crawlability, and how does it affect SEO?
Crawlability is the ability for search engine crawlers to access and read your content. Search engines like Google want websites with excellent crawlability because it helps them deliver relevant results to their users. Therefore, it’s crucial that you improve crawlability on your website if this is an issue, as doing so can help increase traffic, conversions (sales), and revenue overall.
In brief, both of these phrases refer to a search engine’s capacity to access and index web pages to include them in its index.
Crawlability is an essential ranking factor in the search engine. Therefore, if your website does not have good crawlability, it will be harder for Google to find and index all its pages on a site level or even within one domain name’s server configs (e.g., blog.example.com vs. example.com).
How to check your crawl ability score?
We have mentioned earlier that Google crawls your website at least once every two weeks. However, if you are experiencing issues without realizing why they exist, it is recommended to check how many of these crawl requests succeeded. There are several ways to do this, but the simplest is by adding a small piece of code on your page and then checking the results in Google Search Console.
Google uses two different URLs when crawling your website: a sitemap URL and a fetch as a Googlebot setting. The Google process of indexing pages has two essential parts. First, you must use Fetch as the Google method to check crawl efficiency because it gives more detailed information about the request.
Tips for improving your website’s crawl ability
When websites make, there is usually a primary purpose for the website. For example, it could sell products or services, provide information about different topics, or even promote upcoming events. But what do these purposes have in common? They all need search engines to get found by potential customers through organic searches to drive traffic and revenue through their websites.
But what if search engines cannot find your website? What could that mean for your business, and how can you fix it? This blog post from an SEO expert will provide tips to improve the crawlability of your website so Google, Bing, and other search engines have a better chance at indexing it!
Here are some tips to improve your website crawlability:
- Keep your website updated – Search engines want fresh and relevant content to send users to the most up-to-date websites. For example, if you are a restaurant owner constantly changing menus or updating specials on food items, ensure Google knows about it by keeping your website up to date!
- Use sitemaps – Sitemaps are a great way to let search engines know about the pages on your website. For example, if you have an eCommerce store, then make sure all product category and subcategory pages are listed in your sitemap so Google can find them!
- Use descriptive URLs – The more descriptive URLs are for search engine crawlers, the better. For example, if you have a website that sells shoes, your URLs should be descriptive so Google knows what type of shoe to rank in search results!
- Use internal links – Linking between pages on your website is also very important. For example, anchor text used when linking helps search engines understand the page’s context.
- Optimize your title tags and meta descriptions – This is one of the essential parts of SEO! Ensure you write good, descriptive titles for each page so search engines know what to rank it for in organic results. The same goes with meta descriptions which should give searchers a better idea about what to expect when clicking your link!
- Have a blog – Blogging is one of the best ways to get traffic and stay relevant in search engines. For example, if an eCommerce store owner sells shoes, writing about different trends or styles can help drive targeted traffic through organic searches!
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a set of guidelines and practices that help make your website accessible to search engines. The main goal of technical SEO is to ensure your pages’ correct crawling, indexing, and ranking by avoiding common mistakes when designing or building them.
Technical SEO is essential for ensuring that a website meets the technical requirements of modern search engines. This way, it can rank higher in organic rankings and deliver high-quality content to users.
When you build a website, you make it so that people can find information. You do this by crawling through pages. Then you index them with keywords so they are easy to find. Finally, you make the images or text into HTML code for all major browsers to understand. It takes time, but we will help you determine what is best for your site.
Technical SEO is a term that you should understand. It can help your site rank better and stay out of trouble with search engines, but it could hurt if done incorrectly!
The excellent news is that technical SEO audits are accessible for an experienced professional like me (or anyone else).
Here are some technical SEO tips, so you can control even if you’re not a coder:
- Add keyword phrases to your URLs to boost your SEO.
- Make a sitemap for search engines and humans to discover all of the pages on your website, including directories that you don’t want users to see directly.
- Include common phrases in image names to be easily recognized by search engine spiders looking at file descriptions or alt-text attributes.
- Make sure your URLs are short and easy to read.
- If you’re using dynamic pages, ensure that the server includes a “last modified date” for each URL (the last time it was modified). It helps search engines know when they should re-crawl this page again.
- Optimize images with descriptive file names so search engines can understand their content.
- Redirect old, outdated pages to new ones with fresh, relevant information that is up-to-date and still valuable to users (or delete them entirely).
- Put important keywords into your meta description tags; they appear in the Google search results for any page on your site.
- Keep your website secure with SSL certificates.
- Use header tags (H-TAGS) to organize your web page’s content.
- Ensure links are easy for users and search engines to follow internally on the website and any outside links that refer customers back to it.
- Use schema markup to highlight key content on your website to boost the search results.
- Optimize your Robots.txt file to help crawlers understand which pages are indexable and off-limits.
These technical SEO practices will help ensure you have a strong presence online! They can boost your organic rankings and drive traffic to your site if done correctly.
Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile-friendliness is how a website looks and behaves on a mobile phone. Mobile-friendly websites use a responsive design that adjusts the content to look good on every screen size. As a result, more searches do with phones than on computer screens. Being mobile-friendly is important for search engines and people using phones to search the internet.
To see if your site is responsive, submit it to the Mobile-Friendly Test on Google. The test will tell you about any problems with the mobile version of your site.
Google has a new index based on people who use their phones. So if you don’t make your site mobile-friendly, you might be under-ranked in Google’s index.
Many of the factors we’ll discuss in this article will help you get a good rank on a search engine. But, creating a good experience for people when they visit your website is also essential.
How to make your website Mobile-friendly?
How will it look when viewed on your mobile device if you have a website? The design of your site must be responsive so that visitors can view your content in an easy-to-use format. When creating a compelling mobile experience for customers, there are many factors to consider. A critical aspect of this process involves reducing clutter to quickly locate the information they are looking for.
Some aspects you should look for make the website mobile-friendly:
- Choose a mobile-responsive theme or template for your website.
- Reduce the number of colors on your site to make it easier to read using mobile devices, which have smaller screens than desktop computers.
- Strip back your content to its essentials.
- Use a mobile-friendly font that is easy to read on smaller screens, such as Helvetica or Arial.
- Make images and CSS as light as possible.
- Avoid Flash.
- Include a site search function.
- Change button size and placement.
- Space out your links so they are easier to click on smaller screens.
- Make your website pages load faster.
- Eliminate pop-ups and auto-play videos.
Page Load Speed
Another SEO ranking factor is page load speed. Slow-loading sites provide a terrible user experience. Search engines know that people want to find answers as fast as possible, so they prefer to show areas with speedy content for mobile devices or computers.
In March 2017, Google announced a new rule that will help them measure search results. This rule is about speed. The law has to do with both desktop computers and smartphones. On phones, it is essential to scroll on the screen quickly. This way, you can find what you are looking for faster. Google says it’s necessary to use keywords in your blog posts and ensure they load quickly to make this happen.
Use a site speed checker to make sure that your site loads quickly. For example, try this tool to check website speed:
If your site is slow, make it faster by implementing website caching and compressing files. Reducing the number of redirects will also help ensure pages load quicker than if there was no decrease in speed!
However, the most excellent option is using Google Search Console (if you aren’t already). It has a section dedicated to site performance updates, including page load speed and real-time updates.
After completing all of the above steps to improve your site’s user experience, repeat the tool, you used to check site speed. If there has been no change, Google’s Speed Update will have little impact on your rankings.
Optimized Content
A recent study showed that optimized content in Google increased the CTR rate by 58%. That means more clicks to your website and higher rankings.
What we said in this article is essential. First, we talked about how you rank in search engines. It’s because it’s one of the crucial search ranking factors (right up there with user experience, links, and RankBrain, which we’ll get to later).
Let’s go deeper and see what it means to optimize content for SEO.
Duplicate content is when you have the same thing more than once. For SEO, it is best to have fresh and original content. Tell Google which should be ranked in Google search using a canonical URL if you have duplicate content.
However, one of the most frequently asked questions we get at OptinMonster is optimizing content using LSI keywords. So that’s where we’ll begin.
LSI Keywords and SEO Ranking Factors: What They Are and How to Use Them
The core of any SEO campaign is keywords and how they relate to your blog post content. The most powerful way to implement them is through latent semantic indexing (LSI). LSI keywords are related terms that help you find the best-fitting pages for a search engine query but don’t appear in the tag.
Excellent example of LSI keywords is “samsung galaxy s phone” and “galaxy smartphone.” Although the terms are similar, they carry different weights for search engine rankings. They help bring more traffic to your site, but you need to know how to use them as a marketer and find them.
How do LSI Keywords work?
Latent semantic indexing or latent semantic analysis (LSA) is a technology that calculates the relationships between words based on usage instead of their dictionary definition; it’s an extension of the vector space model and word-sense disambiguation. But, as you can probably guess, it’s more of an art than a science.
Latent semantic analysis maps out relationships between words, so you can use them in your content without sounding repetitive or spammy. But what makes LSA interesting for marketers is how search engines like Google and Bing analyze these keywords through indexing. Indexing is kind of like a library card catalog. Search engines find keyword clusters within web pages and use these keywords to organize information throughout the internet into relevant categories for your query.
The Best Way To Use LSI Keywords For The Biggest SEO Rankings Boost
All this sounds great, but here’s where it gets sticky: it can take a long to find the right LSI keywords for your content. The downside of using latent semantic indexing is that you must research and analyze it before implementing them within your blog post’s SEO strategy.
You need two things: understanding how search engines work and patience. Finding the right LSI keywords takes time, and there’s no shortcut to this process. If you don’t have patience with your content marketing strategy, it will never work out in the long run.
An excellent place to start is by using Google Adwords Keyword Planner. You can enter a few sample search terms and see a list of related keywords that you can use in your content. Test out variations and choose the best one to include in your blog post’s SEO strategy.
As long as it makes sense with the overall topic of what you’re writing about (and is still relevant), LSI keywords are a powerful way to boost your blog post content and search engine rankings.
How to Use Search Intent for Content Optimization?
As you write each blog post, you must know your intended search intent behind the article. For example, if you are writing an educational piece on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, your primary search intent would be “how to make a PB&J Sandwich” or some variation thereof. Knowing the search intent behind the article you are writing will help to guide your content optimization.
Search intent is also necessary to consider when writing meta titles and descriptions. The search intent behind an article will help to determine what your title and description should be.
For example, if you are writing a blog post on making a peanut butter sandwich for allergies, the meta title would likely read “How To Make A Peanut Butter Sandwich For People Who Have Allergies” or something along those lines.
The meta description would be something like “If you are looking for information on how to make a peanut butter sandwich if you have allergies, then look no further! This article includes images and step by step instructions that will help anyone learn to make this classic American dish” or something like that.
Knowing the primary search intent behind your article will help guide your meta title and description.
Content Quality
High-ranking content has a high quantity of relevant content. Therefore, it is essential to understand what makes high-quality content and how you can transform your current low-ranking articles into these top-quality pieces.
High-ranking content means in-depth content about a broad range of subjects. The content should provide real value to the user. High-ranking content usually has pictures to go with the words.
Remember, quality always wins. So instead of focusing on the number of words, concentrate on value.
Links
The web is based on links, as we previously stated. As a result, links are an important SEO ranking signal by nature. There are three types of links to consider:
- Inbound links
- Outbound links
- Internal links
The three most frequent anchor types are descriptive, keyword, and branded.
Inbound Links
Inbound links are votes of confidence from other websites that your content is good. The more quality inbound links you have, the better, but don’t forget to keep it natural and not look like a link farm. It means no commenting on low-quality blogs with exclusive backlinks—any search engine will quickly see through this tactic.
Google uses inbound links to rank the quality of your content. The more credible and authoritative websites that link back to you, the better it is for you in search results.
The stronger your domain authority, or how trustworthy Google thinks you are based on links from other sites, the higher your website’s rankings will show—this means more traffic!
You might discover your inbound connections using a tool like SEMrush or one of the keyword research tools previously mentioned in this guide.
Outbound Links
A good blog post might have a dozen links in it. That makes sense because you’re trying to provide your audience with the best possible reading experience. Adding more value with additional resources on related topics is integral. But if those links go only to other destinations on your site, they aren’t doing much good from an SEO perspective.
Outbound links point to other destinations on the web, which you can include for several reasons. One is their value as additional reading material or sources of information; another may be to drive traffic from your site to those outbound links by getting them interested in what they find there and encouraging clicks. However, if you only include links to pages on your site, you are not helping your SEO too much.
Outbound links are key in building incoming backlinks for a blog post. The more outbound links that link back to your website or page with relevant anchor text, the higher it will rank when people search for those keywords.
Internal Links
Finally, internal links are the bread and butter of SEO blogging. These are links within your content to other pages on your blog. Search engines indicate that those other posts, articles, or whatever provide more value for someone looking through results in a search engine like Google (or Bing, Yahoo!, or Baidu). So it can do with text links, images that link to other pages of your website, and more.
The internal links you place in blog posts also help readers looking for additional information on related topics find it easily. If they see an interesting-looking article or post linked within the text but can’t immediately tell where it leads, they may be frustrated enough to stop reading.
Internal linking within blog posts helps reduce reader drop-off and makes the content you’ve written more beneficial for them, which is a big part of what they want when they come to your website in the first place.
Good internal linking should make it easier for your audience to get what they want from your site.
Backlink Factors
Backlinks are an essential part of search engine optimization.
They are a significant factor in how your website can rank on Google.
I will explain the top backlink SEO ranking factors that you need to know about for SEO when writing blog posts or other types of content. Of course, the more links you have, the better it is for rankings! Many factors go into Google’s algorithm.
We do writing this task! You can check the correct answer below or return to continue with another exercise of this lesson on how to write blog post content.
Backlinks are typically regarded as the second most crucial SEO ranking factor, following content. Therefore, if you want your site to rank high in search engine results, you’ll need a strategy for creating high-quality backlinks through guest posting, link acquisition, digital PR, and other link-building tactics.
- Backlink Anchor Text: The anchor text is the visible, clickable words that hyperlink to another webpage. It’s important to know which keyword phrases you’re targeting for your link-building campaigns so that you can use them as your anchor text.
- Backlink Location: The location where the backlinks are placed is also an essential factor, so it’s necessary to have links in several sections of your site.
- Alt Tag (for Image Links): Search engines use the alt text to understand better what is in your image. What words you choose will help determine how high your page can rank in the search engine.
- Links from .edu or .gov Domains: Usually, if you can get a link from a .edu or .gov site, it is considered the highest authority available. These links are tough to acquire, so it is always a good idea to have them on your website.
- Authority of Linking Page: The authority of the linking page is another essential factor. It means it’s always better to have links on sites with higher domain authority than yours since that will help you rank higher in the search engine.
- Backlink Diversity: It is perfect for SEO if you have links from many sources. That will help keep your website safe if one of the sites gets penalized by Google for spamming or some other reason.
- Guest Posts: Guest posts are a great way to get high-quality backlinks from other websites.
- Links From Ads: When you have ads on your site, those are another great place to put backlinks from. It’s a good idea to make sure that the link is easy to notice to stand out on the page.
- Contextual Links: If you can find a way to include your link in the context of what they are writing about, that will be one more backlink you get. Ensure that the link is relevant to your site, or it will hurt you and not help in any way.
- Internal Link Anchor Text: Internal links are essential because search engine crawlers will follow them to find more content on your website. Ensure that each internal link has the relevant keyword phrase you want to rank for as the anchor text.
- External Link Anchor Text: External links are what other sites will use when they link to you. Ensure that the anchor text has the relevant keyword phrase of what your site is about, or it will hurt your rankings in search engine results.
- Link from Authority Sites: You can get a lot of traffic from the links you receive on other websites. That is why building relationships with different people and websites is crucial to get good links from them.
- Backlink Age: The age of the backlink will also play an essential factor in how your site ranks. The older, the more trusted it is by search engines.
- Reciprocal Links: Some websites will accept a reciprocal link. You put their backlink on your site, and they will do the same for you.
- Forum Links: Some forums will allow you to put your link in the signature of your writing. You have to ensure that it is relevant and easy to notice.
- Directories: You can submit your site to many directories, which is always a good idea if appropriate and easy to do.
- Blog Commenting: You can get quality backlinks by commenting on other blogs and linking to your website. It is suitable for the community but also helps get you more traffic.
Social Signals
The other two factors are Google+, and Facebook likes. These contribute to your social authority score, which is further factored into your overall ranking. You can increase these factors by:
- Posting on Google+ and Facebook regularly (once / day)
- Responding to followers on Google+ and Facebook
- It is getting +’s, shares, etc. It’s also worth noting that these factors have weighed more heavily in the past. However, it is unclear whether this remains the case.
- Building relationships with influencers on Google+ and Facebook
- Posting on other relevant social networks like Twitter, Pinterest, etc. (but don’t make it a priority)
Another indicator that your material is valuable is when people share it on social media. According to Cognitive SEO’s study of 23 million shares, there is a correlation between Twitter shares and Google rankings.
It is compelling data because people are naturally inclined to share content they believe will be valuable to their social networks. Therefore, your content should craft with the end-user in mind, not just what you think will rank well.
Conclusion
Search optimization has never been more critical than today, and we want to help you stay on top of the ever-changing industry. Our team members are people with experience in marketing. They can help you write content, manage social media, and make your website work better for search engines.
After reading this article, readers should understand how search engines work and what to do to increase their rankings. We started with the basics and discussed how links build and why they matter. Then we discussed the different factors that affect rankings. Finally, I wrapped up some tips to help you build links and increase your rankings.
Contact us now if you need assistance in any area of digital marketing that impacts how well a site ranks on Google’s SERP (search engine result page). We look forward to hearing from you!
