What is “ranking” in SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which means making web pages suitable for search engines in order to rank higher. Google considers many factors while ranking websites. If you are new to SEO and digital marketing then these examples can help you understand the concept and process in a better way.
There are over 200 ranking factors but the following are the most important factors that you should take care of while doing SEO.
A secure and accessible website
It comes as no surprise that the factor that tops the list has to do with having the right kind of URL. Specifically, a URL that Google’s bots can easily reach.
In simple terms, Google has to be able to visit the URL and look at the page content to start to understand what the page is about. To help the bots out, you’ll need;
- A robots.txt file that informs Google where it can and cannot look for your site information
- A website created by a well-coded website builder
- A sitemap that lists all your pages.
Page speed
Page speed has been recognized as one of the main SEO ranking factors for years. Google aims to improve the users’ experience of the web, and fast-loading web pages will surely do that.
Mobile-friendliness
Mobile-friendliness is another major SEO ranking factor. As a fact, more people use mobile devices than desktops to surf the web.
Google’s mobile-first index is no longer a fantasy which means that now it’s drawing its results from mobile-optimized sites first, rather than sites geared to desktop computers. According to Safari Digital SEO Adelaide, sites that are not optimized for mobile responsiveness in 2020 are missing out on traffic.
Many of the SEO ranking factors that we will talk about in this article will help you lay the foundation for a good search engine ranking. But you would also have to monitor the user experience when people land on your site.
Things to consider
- Whether you are using large fonts for easy readability on a small screen
- Ensuring that essential content isn’t hidden by interstitial ads
- Accessibility and navigability, including making it easy to tap menus
- Whether you have a responsive site that automatically resizes to fit the device appropriately.
Technical SEO
Getting the code right is only one aspect of optimizing content for better search engine rankings. Here are some of the aspects you need to be looking at:
- Use header tags to portray content hierarchy.
- Use keyword phrases in page titles, which is where Google first looks to find out which content is relevant to which search.
- Where it’s appropriate, use schema markup to let Google know what kind of content you are planning to produce.
Links
Links are a crucial element to SEO. There are three kinds of links to keep in mind:
- Inbound links
- Outbound links
- Internal links
Google uses inbound links as one way to help determine how authoritative and relevant your content is.
If, for example, a content marketing firm includes a link to your content marketing resource, that will be perceived better than if a random person with a low-quality site links to it. You can also get a high-quality link from Directory Submit.
It would be best for you to have very few inbound links from low-quality domains. At the same time, you would want to show that you’re producing quality content for your visitors.
Linking to your own content can help tie pages together for both Google and your visitors, hence making each page more valuable. For example, if you have an authoritative page and link to another page on your site, that helps the viewers find other pages and discover more content.
