There is no game like a website ranking game. After all, it includes the vast thinking process and the implementation of new SEO strategies to bring your website to the first page among the top five results. According to a statistic, it is cleared that the first five organic results on the first page alone account for 67.60% of all the clicks that result in more sales, increased leads, and revenue. This is probably the primary reason marketers spend dollars on SEO and marketing to win this ranking game. Right? If you’re also in the same race, you must be scrambling for essential SEO factors that can help you rank your website high in SERPs.
Do you know Google’s search algorithm uses more than 200 factors to rank websites? Impressive! Isn’t it? Being a marketer or SEO specialist, you cannot apply all those factors, or you’ll get an idea about what these factors are. So, what’s the solution?
After the intensive research and case studies over search engine optimization, we have rounded up the ideal SEO ranking factors that Google suggests in 2021. Yes. Follow these factors, and we are sure that you’ll surely lead this SEO game to gain the top ranking. Take a look at the below-listed points-
1.) Domain Age, Authority, and URL Optimization
A study shows that around 50 percent of websites ranked on the first page of SERPs are three years old or older. This study might drop you into a big dig of fears. Being a new brand in the online marketplace, you may have a fear of facing failure. This can be discouraging, but it’s possible to rank, even if you are a new brand in the market. All you need to consider a few things and focus on the SEO strategy you follow.
When you use the domain name with the exact match of target keywords in the URL, the chances of getting ranked on search engines rise to a reasonable extent until and unless the keywords are relevant and valuable. On the other hand, if you use the irrelevant exact match domain names, Google will find your website against its policies, resulting in a penalty.
Your website should meet Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), including the website authority. It means content from a reputed and famous website will prioritize to rank instead of content coming from a brand new website. You can’t do much anything with such Google’s set aspects. So, if you’re a brand new website with all-new content loaded, Google suggests optimizing your website to help it run in the long run. A well-optimized, mature, and high-quality content-rich webpage can help you stand out from others and beat the competition.
2.) Site Security Certificate
In the boast of attaining top positions on search engines, sometimes, marketers forget the crucial part of their website, i.e., Site Security Certificate. Therefore, Google recommends website owners migrate from HTTP to HTTPS. Although both are the primary protocols used for sending and receiving information in a website form, the fundamental difference between is HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) adds an extra layer of security using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate that ensures the secure data transfer.
There is a misconception among marketers that converting a website to HTTPS instantly boosts their rankings on SERP. That’s not true! SEO ranking is a slow and lengthy process that requires constant effort. HTTP websites can increase the bounce rate. When a user accesses your website using a Chrome browser, Google sends “Not Secure” notifications that significantly increase your bounce rate and impact your traffic. A secured website can indeed add more to the rankings.
3.) Page Load Speed
According to Google, when the website page takes from 1 to 3 seconds to load, the chances for a high SERP ranking increase by 32%. Unfortunately, most website owners get confused between page speed and site speed. Page speed is the time to display the complete content on a specific webpage, whereas site speed is the page speed for just a sample of page views on the whole website.
Page speed is considered one of the crucial ranking factors suggested by Google. Therefore, it is always recommended to monitor your page speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights and take the necessary steps in action on your website to improve your page speed.
4.) Content Is Still A King
If you think a content strategy can’t deliver you the desired rankings, then you’re wrong. Content is still king, and the SEO performance of your website depends on compelling content. No matter how many optimizations you’ve done on your website, you won’t achieve your SEO goals if the content quality is low and irrelevant for the audience.
The better the content is, the higher the chances will be to gain higher SEO scores. But how will you determine that a piece of content is high-quality or not? Although content is a broad chapter, some factors can help you know the content’s quality.
- The content should include up-to-date information.
- The content should be unique or 100% plagiarism-free.
- The content should be relevant enough to your targeted audience.
- The content should be voted by third party websites in the backlinks form,
- The content should be well SEO-optimized.
Besides the above factors, it is also essential to know the length of the content. It is always suggested the more extended range (saying approx. more than 2000 words) strengthens your SEO content marketing strategy. So, if you want your website to rank in one of the top five organic search results in the SERPs, prefer writing the longer content. But at the same time, it is necessary to maintain the quality over a longer content. Seems difficult? But this is also an important thing to take into consideration.
5.) Link Profile
The more backlinks a page has, the more search traffic it gets from Google. Let’s make it clear. The statistic shows that the top results on Google SERPS have 3.8 million backlinks than those below them. This clearly defines how important the backlinks are. Even internal and external links are equally as crucial as backlinks. Let’s discuss more these types of links-
- Backlinks/inbound links
In simple words, backlinks are usually considered as the voting system of the internet that tells if a website is a trustworthy source or not. Therefore, the more your website will have votes, the more it becomes a trusted source over the internet. This is why backlinks are one of the crucial ranking factors to follow while implementing SEO strategies.
However, according to Google, the quality of backlinks is more important than quantity. Above all, keeping a check on the relevancy of the backlink’s source is also necessary.
- Internal linking
Internal linking plays a crucial role in indexing. It defines the whole website structure to Google and passes the authority between several pages. Users always want to get immediate answers to their search queries. The internal linking can help your website visitors to access the information they are looking for. In simple words, these types of links add to the user experience.
- External/ Outbound links
The primary purpose of using an external link to your content is to tell Google that you’ve done good research for your content. Therefore, make sure that you have added a relevant link to your content.
6.) User Experience (UX) Factor
Google’s algorithm now primarily focuses on improved user experience factors to rank high on Google SERPs. So you can say it’s a key to SEO success. Ensure you monitor the user experience factors in real-time and bring changes to your site accordingly to see your website ranked in one of the top results in SERPs.
Google measures the user experience based on three factors-
- Bounce Rate
The percentage rate of people who click on the page and leave the site immediately is called the bounce rate. The higher the percentage of bounce rates, the lower your website will rank on SERPs. The high bounce rate shows that your page is not relevant to the search query.
- Dwell Time
Dwell time refers to how long a visitor stays on your website after clicking on the SERP. More dwell time leads to better results.
- Click-Through Rate
Click-Through Rate is the percentage rate of visitors who click on SERP to land on your website. If the CTR is low, then it will also affect your SEO performance.
Final Words
The above-listed points are some of the essential ranking factors suggested by Google that can improve your SEO performance to a great extent. Highlight your new & old brand in a much better way, keeping above these factors. SEO is a slow and long ranking process that needs time and a well-through strategy to implement. Ensure you’ve implemented the above-listed Keyword Tools with SEO Experts‘ help to improve website ranking on SERPs.
SEO Ranking Factors Suggested By Google in 2021
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