SEO or Search engine optimization means making the web page likely to get ranked on the search engine. SEO refers to the content’s position on the SERPs, and #1 ranking means when people search for a particular term, the web pages are the first result which shows up. The click-through rate skyrockets after you enter the top 2 results on the SERPs.
What does Google look for in SEO?
The purpose of Google is to organize the world’s information properly and make it accessible and valuable, and delivering relevant searches is a huge part of that. How it works is that search bots called spiders visit the web pages, add the correctly optimized pages to Google’s index, and catalogue them. Google has complex algorithms to decide which content gets displayed in which order. After your page lands on SERPs, you should rely on the page titles and meta descriptions. This can get the searchers to click on your links. They also visit your site after that.
How do Google search rankings work?
When people want information, they say or type words related to what they are looking for. These are called keywords. Keeping your website ranking on Google is not only about competitive keywords. It is also about the quality of information.
Following are the check factors of Google-
- Purpose of the page.
- Content quality and amount.
- Info about the content creator.
- Website reputation.
- E-A-T.
Based on the rating guidelines, Google searches show the most relevant and high-quality results related to what they are looking for. One of the major goals of addressing the SEO ranking factors is to let the search engine know when your pages are relevant to the particular search queries. Thus, people will click the link and visit your site.
What is E-A-T?
E-A-T is expertise, authority and trustworthiness. The main goal of the change was to ensure that the users weren’t just getting the highest value content but also the correct information, and one must understand this.
Expertise: This means does the author of the piece of content have the requisite skills or knowledge in their field?
Authority: It is the best source for answering the searcher’s question.
Trustworthiness: Does the author provide an honest presentation of the topic in their content?
Google measures E-A-T in the following three steps-
- Engineers try to create an algorithm for improving search results.
- The human searchers also see the search results without the changes made by the engineers.
- The human searchers see the search results with and without the changes made by bots.
You can increase your E-A-T, and following are some of the tips to do that-
- Create an ‘about us’ page on your web site.
- Optimize your page for searcher intent.
- Display the certificate or the credentials on your site.
- Respond to the positive and the negative reviews.
- Keep all the information as accurate as possible.
Many individuals avail of the services of SEO Gold Coast, which provides different types of SEO services at lucrative costs.
Following are the top ranking factors of Google
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A secure and accessible website.
It is crucial to have the correct URL type, and it should be the URL that Google’s bots can easily reach and crawl. The search engine should be able to visit the URL and also look at the web page content to understand what the page is about. To help the bots, you will need-
- A website that is created with a well-coded website builder.
- A sitemap which lists all your pages.
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Page speed.
It has been cited as the most leading SEO ranking factor for many years. The search engine wants to improve the user’s experience of the web. It also intends to strengthen the fast-loading web pages. The search engine also announced an algorithm update focused on mobile page speed which started affecting the sites in July 2018. Your site could be penalized if it does not load fast on mobile devices.
You can start using Google Search Console, which has an entire section which is dedicated to updating you on the site’s performance.
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Mobile-friendliness.
Another major SEO factor is mobile-friendliness, and many people use mobile devices rather than desktops for accessing the web. This is one reason they have changed how Google ranks the search results.
Google’s mobile-first index is drawing its results from the mobile-optimized sites first rather than the sites geared to the desktops. If your site is not mobile-optimized, your rankings can get affected.
You should get more tips on the mobile-friendly design to improve Google’s search rankings and improve the mobile conversion rate.
If you have time and energy, you should explore Google AMP. Google ranks the sites built with AMP more highly than the other search engines. However, you should make another version of the site following AMPs guidelines. It could be a time-intensive project, but it is worth it.
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Domain age, URL and authority.
Nearly 60% of the sites which have a top ten Google search rankings are three years old or more. Data suggests that two million pages suggests that only a few sites which are less than a year are able to achieve that ranking.
The match domains that are relevant and high-quality are able to see a ranking boost because of it and if you already have an established website, you should not go looking for an exact match domain for your business. Authority also matters when it comes to the search engine ranking factors.
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Optimized content.
Optimized content is one of the most important search ranking factors and the search algorithm of Google also relies on keywords. These are the phrases and words which look for the information and they describe the topics your site is about.
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Understanding LSI and keywords and SEO ranking.
In SEO, it is also important to include the terms which are related to the main terms individuals are searching for. They are called LSI keywords and these provide a kind of online word association for helping Google know which results to show.