SEO is constantly evolving with how people interact with the content on the internet. To reach your target audience without paying for ads, you need to learn how to use SEO. But even if you understand and try different SEO strategies, what’s to say whether it will work? If you’re learning about SEO, here are a few key factors you should know about to ensure that your website gets views organically. But before diving into it, let’s understand what SEO ranking is.
Let’s Discuss Your SEO Goals
What is SEO Ranking?
SEO ranking refers to the position of a website page in a search engine’s organic results. If your page has relevant content to a user’s query, it may rank higher in search results. To understand if your content is ranking, you can type in your query or a related keyword in the search bar.
The first two results that pop up are paid ads. Below the paid ads you will find all organic results.
Now that you understand what SEO ranking is, why is it important to a website?
Essential SEO Ranking Factors
Simply put, the higher your website ranks, the more visitors it gets. This boosts your brand awareness, which may lead to more sales. Plus, organic traffic is cheaper compared to paid advertising channels.
1. Enhance the User Experience
If your audience finds it easy to absorb information on your website they will keep returning for more. As your content is relevant, it will slowly start to rank on Google. Begin with creating a website with a U.I. that is easy to navigate. If a customer is searching for information on your services or products on your website, they should be able to find it easily.
Google also looks at the page speed of your website. Ensure your website loads quickly so your target audience spends more time rather than bouncing to another website. Here are a few ways to better your website’s loading speed.
- Optimize all the images on the website
- Remove unnecessary code that loads before the page content.
- Reduce redirecting your audience. If you have a large website the redirects could accumulate over time.
To understand how your target audience finds your website’s interface, analyze the below factors:
- Organic Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Page Dwell Time
- Bounce Rate
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2. Post Fresh Content
Why would your target audience visit your website if your content was similar to others? Hence, you must always publish fresh, quality content on your website. It will help your website stay relevant and engaging for users and search engines.
Search engines crawl new content and signal that the website is up to date. This shows them that the website is relevant to the users; thus, your website ranks in search results. Plus, if you keep posting content on your website, your target audience will keep returning to learn more.
3. Build Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are an indicator that shows the authority and credibility of a website. A high-quality backlink could indicate to search engines that other authoritative websites validate your content.
In other words, it boosts your site’s trustworthiness. To get a high-quality backlink, start building a relationship or conducting outreaches with other website bloggers in your field. Once you’ve established a good relationship, focus on creating content relevant to your user. This will attract more users to your website, improving your rankings in search engines.
4. Steer Clear of Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the process of adding several keywords to the content. With an overload of keywords, the content becomes unreadable. Some keyword stuffing types are:
- Repeating the same keyword in the content in an unnatural way
- Inserting keywords that are not relevant to your services or products
- Adding keywords to your website page’s code.
Keyword stuffing makes your content look illegal and spammy. If your target audience lands on your website and notices this, they will immediately bounce away. This will negatively impact your dwell time. With a high bounce rate and fewer conversions, your website will lose its ranking.
Instead, you want to insert your targeted keywords into specific pages on your website. The following is a list of places you should add your keywords:
- Meta description
- Title tag
- H1 and H2 headings
- URL
- In the first 100 words of the content, if you can, and naturally in the rest of the content.
5. Website Security
Your website security may provide a little benefit for your ranking, but it can at least give some protection to your website user. To check if your website is secure, look at your URL in your browser’s address bar. If it shows a padlock icon in front of ‘https://’, your website is secure.
To secure your website, all you have to do is obtain an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate helps protect sensitive data transmitted over the internet. A benefit of having an SSL certificate is that your user knows your website is legit and not fake.
6. E.E.A.T. Principle
It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. The principle serves as a benchmark for Google’s assessment of websites. In layman’s terms, google analyses the creator’s experience and knowledge in a particular field.
In today’s age, misinformation can spread easily. Google does its best to ensure creators publish accurate information on their websites.
The benefits of this SEO ranking factor are:
- Build confidence and trust in the business
- Enhances the content’s credibility
- Builds a reputable presence online over time.
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Conclusion
If you become an SEO manager or want to understand how SEO works for your website, it is key to understand SEO ranking factors.
Understanding how SEO ranking works will help you create the right strategies to help your website. In the long run, this will draw the right target audience to your website.
Also, using the E.E.A.T. principle will help you build a reputable online presence.
So, focus on more than just optimizing your website for SEO. Spend time understanding how it operates and then create a strategic action plan.
This approach will stop you from doubting yourself if your efforts are practical. Plus, now your efforts will yield meaningful results.
