Rebecca Ohanes 4 years ago
If you’re anything like me who focuses more on ranking factors in Google before publishing your content, by now you know your SEO (search engine optimization) rules by heart, so much so that it’s almost becoming a routine for you. And what’s better than to have a good and ready formula for publishing your content online, am I right? After all, it’ll save you a lot of time and unnecessary headaches to have mastered the art of optimizing your SERP (search engine result position).
Well, allow me to indulge in my love for Greek philosophers for a change and quote Heraclitus: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Put in simpler terms, this quote, in a very roundabout way, is supposed to convey the message that everything changes and nothing is ever constant. While this can apply to anything in life – which I’m pretty sure was what Heraclitus initially had in mind -, in this article, it refers to applies primarily to Google’s algorithm and, consequently, its ranking factors.
By now it is a well-known fact that Google constantly changes the algorithm it uses to rank websites, yet at the same time refrains from disclosing detailed information as to how to achieve a higher ranking. That’s why it’s important to stay on alert of the SEO ranking factors, particularly the underrated ones.
This article is here to give you an overview of ranking factors that oftentimes tend to be overlooked. And stay at ease, there will be no further references to Greek literature.
Not to overegg the pudding, but page speed is sort of like what good sound is to a theatre play. Without it, the chances that you’ll be able to keep your audience’s attention are slim to none.
You’d think that by now every single website owner is aware of the importance of speed. Not just for Google, mind you, but mostly for the visitors of your site. Studies have shown that faster loading pages lead to a 16.5% increase in conversion rate.
But since I continue encountering websites that are sometimes next to impossible to load, I can’t help but mention this aspect again.
Google has officially stated that speed is a significant part of SEO best practices. It all comes down to the simple fact that when people have questions they’ll need the answers as quickly as possible.
A not very long time ago, the speed aspect was only limited to computer searches. Nowadays, however, mobile technology has overtaken our digital habits and plays a more significant role in our day-to-day life. This, of course, hasn’t escaped the tech giant’s attention.
Against this background, the mobile-friendliness of your web page has gained importance. What this translates into is that it’s not enough anymore for you to simply ensure a high-speed level of your website on desktops. You need to do the same for mobile phones as well.
Perhaps even more so. The surge of smartphone usage has moved Google to adjust its ranking factors accordingly. Some even go as far as to argue that Google prioritizes SEO factors in the mobile version over desktop.
Here’s how you can do it:
The overall gist of this concept is to have a bottom-up approach towards creating websites. In other words, it’s recommended that you start building your site in its simplest, most basic form that is suitable for mobile usage and then upgrade to a more enhanced version for other devices.
Another commonly neglected Google ranking factor is your domain. If you’re interested in knowing what that is, well, your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it’s easily overlooked because it’s such a basic element.
First and foremost, having a qualitatively good URL means that it has to accurately represent your website’s content. The best way to think of it is, would a website visitor be able to understand what your page content is about by only reading your URL description – without the title tag that is?
If the answer is no, then make sure to pay more attention to that aspect in the future. It would not only make things easier for your website visitors but also for Google to better categorize your content.
Additionally good for your rankings is to include the keyword you’re targeting in your URL. This is where opinions diverge. While some might rightly draw attention to the fact that Google penalizes “exact-match domains” (EMDs), i.e. the inclusion of keywords in URLs, we’d like to highlight that this penalty only concerns websites with low-quality content.
This being said, your domain URL plays a relatively smaller role in your Google ranking compared to your domain authority. To improve your ranking via an increased domain authority, you have to make sure that
a) you have high-quality content (more on this in the follow-up section) and
b) off-page SEO signals, such as internal and external links.
Off-page SEO refers to the link building element of your website optimization process. Basically, what you need for this is backlinks that refer to your website. This, in turn, requires active engagement and network building within your business community.
However, make sure to prioritize quality over quantity. A simple rule of thumb here is the more link references you get from websites with an expert status, the higher the likelihood that you become one yourself.
Figuratively speaking, Google interprets link-building as quasi-recommendations and thus increases your ranking. So, by achieving expert status you gain domain authority, which Google perceives as a signal that your website content has informative value. Based on this evaluation, you gain a higher ranking.
Lastly, and this one’s for you, my dear website hoppers, Google takes into account the age of a domain. Why do you ask? Well, at the risk of stating the obvious: it signals maturity, reliability, and trustworthiness.
So before creating a website, it pays out to take some time to do some proper soul searching and figure out what your content and brand will be about and if you will still find them interesting years later.
For those of you who are running their sites for several years now, your commitment will definitely payout, provided that you are vigilant about the other SEO factors, of course.
When speaking of high-quality content, it’s important to remind ourselves that everyone has a different understanding of what that entails.
For instance, while Leo Tolstoy loved to write lengthy novels with complex storylines containing a lot of subtexts, Charles Bukowski loved to keep it simple, concise, and, most importantly, blunt – no subtext there. Now both of these men are highly-accomplished authors with highly different audiences.
So, what does this tell us? Basically that the quality of content lies in the eye of the beholder. In our case, the beholder is Google. And Google loves
a) simple language, as the content is meant to reach a wide, perhaps the international audience,
b) a clear structure (in the form of subtitles and bullet points), that will improve the readability of the content,
c) keywords to help categorize your content and assign it to a specific audience
d) length, along the lines of the more the merrier
e) and most importantly, the accuracy of information. It’s the only and most sustainable way to ensure that your site enjoys a good reputation among its peers and can build domain authority.
Video marketing can encounter you in different shapes and forms, sometimes without you even noticing that you’re watching a marketing ad.
But why invest in this specific and some might argue time-consuming and costly type of marketing? First of all, according to Alexa’s top 500 sites on the web, Youtube ranks in second place, right after Google.
Second of all, marketing experts who rely on videos for their campaigns have a revenue growth rate that is 49% faster than those who don’t.
Another important aspect is that video content has the potential to reach a wider audience due to the gloomy reality that people are more likely to watch videos than to read a text.
What’s more, is that depending on the business field you’re in video marketing isn’t something that everybody is doing. This means that you’ll have a significant advantage over your competitors.
Overall, it’s a very effective way to increase your traffic inflow, authority domain, and consequently your Google SERP ranking.
CONCLUSION
The word has it that ranking on Google’s first page is time-consuming and hard. But believe my word your efforts will eventually pay off.
So whether you’re looking for a way to increase your current page ranking or you’ve just kick-started your new landing page, now is the time to pay attention to the key five ranking factors mentioned above.
Is your page speedy enough? Will your visitor be able to view your content on a mobile? What is the URL they need to see? Have you used enough keywords in your text?
I have brought together a small checklist to help you answer all these questions and boost your webpage ranking.
Share this Article with your acquaintances & if you are looking for improving your website SEO, do check out our Premium WordPress Maintenance Service.
Rebecca Ohanes is the Content Writer at 10Web – a platform for building, hosting, and managing WordPress websites. She’s a part-time PhD student and a full-time WordPress enthusiast.
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