With as many algorithm updates as Google has had over the years, keeping track of everything can be difficult. Luckily, there are a few key factors that are slightly more important than the rest. If you’re looking to improve SEO, pay close attention to these essential website ranking factors.
How to Improve your Website Ranking
1. Content
This may not come as a surprise, but content is still the most important factor for improving website ranking. First of all, the relevance and quality of your content should be the primary focus. To completely satisfy a user’s inquiry, your page must provide value with in-depth content related to the subject.
Furthermore, while there is no hard-and-fast rule on length, the Google algorithm tends to prefer longer, more comprehensive content. However, when crafting your content, make sure that it is, above all, relevant to your business and audience.
2. Backlinks
Believe it or not, backlinks remain an important part of Google’s website ranking algorithm. However, a high number of links isn’t the only way to improve your ranking anymore. Google has learned to weed them out unless they come from a number of diverse, high-authority domains.
The key to improving your number of backlinks is to create and promote engaging, high-quality content. When other industries and businesses read and link to it, the Google algorithm will consider your content more relevant.
3. Mobile
Ever since November of 2016, Google has used mobile-first indexing to influence its website rankings. This means that, if your website is not compatible with mobile devices, its search ranking will not improve. Besides, these days, there are far more mobile than desktop users.
Basically, if your brand isn’t using mobile, you are closing yourself off to a large portion of your audience and your ranking will suffer tremendously.
4. Page Speed
In addition to mobile-first indexing, page speed has also recently become a major factor in ranking websites. Essentially, websites that take a long time to load will have a harder time ranking among the top results.
That is because Google is dedicated to providing everyone with an ideal user experience. Slow websites are not what we would call an ideal user experience.
5. Other Important Factors
For the most part, websites with a strong HTTPS encryption will rank much better than their HTTP counterparts. After all, Google has no interest in directing users to websites with sketchy, unsafe domains.
Furthermore, website pages that contain clearly-marked H1 and H2 headings will have a solid ranking. That is because these headers help users determine what each part of the content is about.
If you’re trying to boost your website ranking, then you better start with these five essential tips and tricks.
