Google has changed a lot throughout the years. And these specific changes also brought upon the changing list of SEO ranking factors.
We’re all too familiar with these types of lists. While these are all trendy and somewhat correct, most of these types of lists are estimations and are a result of tedious and costly tests done up by different website owners all over the web.
For this year, we’ve collected a few factors that are highly likely ranking factors:
Having a Secure and Accessible Website
Obviously, the types of websites that has this trait has been surviving pretty well. These days, after a few weird moments in internet history, security has been a very important aspect. As well as having a site that’s actually working.
Today, humanity is almost connected to their mobile devices 24/7. Everything now is fast paced. Being able to secure vast amounts of valuable information from people and having a site that can carry all this traffic while not buckling is very important.
Mobile and Page Speed
Like what was just mentioned, if your site isn’t loading up almost instantly, you will be left in the dust pretty easily these days. Being a business owner today means that you will need to step up your game since everyone is hungry and are gunning for the top spot in the internet when it comes for business. Being the very first ones to serve up information fast enough for people looking through their mobile devices will get all of the early worm.
Mobile Friendliness
Unfortunately, most website owners these days won’t take time to make their websites adapt well on mobile. Completely ignoring the fact that most of the traffic or potential customers they could be targeting can be reached via mobile.
Not too long ago, and we’ve covered this before, Google made the mobile first index. Basically what it does is that it prioritises websites that are optimised for mobile.
Domain Age, URL, and Authority
This one might be a little hard to follow up, especially if you’re just a starting business. But, like in the music industry, what you need to be doing is going out there and play live. Build your bones. Everything starts at the bottom. What matters is the work and being honest with it. If you’re just starting out and you’re already trying to cheat your way up the ranks, you will take years trying to build your brand and business and you really won’t be going anywhere.
Exact matched URLs are out of the question. You might want to use keyword terms for your URL to associate with yourself with these terms to rank easier. That’s cool and all, except it’s not 2011 anymore. This was made public long ago by Matt Cutts. (2012)
The Authority part here means the authority of the site in general. Not the DA or Domain Authority. Authority gets built over time. There’s no cheating around this one. That’s why it’s important to build your way up properly.
Really Good Content
Much like air being a constant living thing fuel for us carbon based creatures, Content is an immovable variable in the realm of digital marketing.
In a literal logical sense, imagine if a website doesn’t have quality content. By quality we would mean something that’s useful and helpful for people. Why would Google, today’s Google, ever rank this kind of empty useless website if it has nothing to offer?
Onsite Elements (Technical SEO)
A website without any of the very basic elements of otpimisation will clearly have trouble ranking. Not only is it incomplete, it really won’t work properly.
Positive User Experience
Like domino’s lined up, good content and properly working technical SEO elements etc. results in positive user experience. And because Google has this small tiny thing called the Google Rank Brain, it can remember and understand if people are actually enjoying their time in your website or not.
Time to check your site. Is it set up well? Is it loading correctly and quickly? Do you have content that can keep incoming traffic and reduce your bounce rate?
Backlinks
Are the links being built for you all clean and spiffy? Having a lot of links connected to you is one thing, but having a really clean backlink profile is another.
What most of the younger ones forget is the fact that it’s not just about building backlinks continuously. Building links need to be naturally done. The purpose here is to make sure that there can be more people seeing your content.
And in that sense, are all your links inside your site working well? Internal linking is as important as having outbound / inbound links.
Social Signals
Social shares aren’t direct ranking factors –Google once said. But, evidence all over the web dictates that the more viral content gets, the better amount of traffic it gets. Again, since Google has already evolved into this giant creepy A.I., it will see and understand if your content is doing well. Even in social media. Remember, in all of digital marketing, Social Media is SEO’s razzle dazzle glitter powder.
Having a Real Business Information Displayed Online
For local SEO, these types of elements are very important. Also, Google will want to make sure that people will be able to find the physical address of these businesses that it’s ranking.
Going back to the growing culture of people dependent on mobile devices, they would most likely be looking through their phones on Google trying to find these businesses and the services they’re offering. Reviews displayed on these listing are as important as well.
Last but not the least, another factor, if you may that will lead you to finally take heed and check these elements on your site is that recently, another core update rocked the search results again. This time aiming for websites that aren’t updated in any or all of these things listed above. The tough reality though for core updates is the fact that there are absolutely no fix to them. Once it hits you, you’re blown out of the water. Didn’t fix your site earlier? Maybe that’s the problem. But if you’re a bit more of a forward thinker, you can get some good old boost of SEO service from us!
