There are numerous SEO ranking factors that help search engines determine the ranking of websites. If you want your website to claim the top spot on SERPs, you need to optimize it by keeping the top most critical ranking factors in mind. If you want your SEO efforts to be successful, you need to stay up to date on the best search engine optimization practices and factors that can affect your ranking.
So, let’s take a look at some factors that will affect your website’s SEO ranking!
6 Vital SEO Ranking Factors
Here are six crucial SEO ranking factors that you must keep in mind to optimize your website:
1. Site Security
Site security is inarguably one of the most critical Google ranking factors. Security denotes the use of HTTPS encryption. Websites that have this encryption have SSL certificates that form a safe connection between the site and its visitors. This secure connection protects any information exchange between the site and the user. HTTPS encryption shows search engines that a website is secure. Since search engines drive users to trustworthy and credible sites, you need to secure an SSL certificate to boost your website’s trustworthiness.
2. High-Quality Content
High-quality content will also boost your website’s credibility and ranking. Search engines want to provide users access to the most relevant, credible, and informative content. So, if you produce well-researched, well-crafted, fresh content, you will have better chances of improving your ranking. Moreover, make sure to focus on on-page SEO to optimize your content for search engines.
3. Backlink Profile
High-quality backlinks from credible websites are one of the most crucial SEO ranking factors as they tell search engines that your website is authoritative. This off-page SEO factor will help you rank higher on SERPs. To ensure that you have high-quality backlinks, look into guest posting on credible sites, broaden your network, and use other link-building strategies.
4. Keyword Research
Have a strategic approach for content creation. Perform keyword research to target niche-related topics and boost your ranking. Target long-tail keywords, such as long phrases and questions, along with shorter generic keywords. Understand your users’ search intent to match your content with it and attain a higher ranking in SERPs. Always target keywords that are within your website’s competitive range for better results.
5. Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile-friendly websites have a responsive design which translates into a good user experience. The content in these websites adjusts to the size of the user’s screen so that it looks good and is readable on all devices. Since 52.2% of internet traffic originates from mobile devices, mobile-friendliness is an essential factor for search engines and users alike. So, you need to ensure that your website is responsive to enhance its mobile friendliness.
6. Site Crawlability
Moreover, your website’s crawlability is another important SEO ranking factor since search engines need to find and read a website to rank it. Crawlability allows them to scan your website and review its content to determine what each page is about and how it should be ranked. If you want to boost your website’s crawlability, submit a sitemap to the top search engines. Also, keep a check on the number of pages Google has crawled on your site and use robots.txt properly to ensure search engines know which pages to access.
Apart from the SEO ranking factors mentioned above, you also need to focus on:
- Improving your page speed
- Ensuring user engagement
- Creating a structured site
- Optimizing your Google My Business listing
Lastly, your domain age will also impact your website’s ranking. If your website is relatively new, it will take you some time to boost its search engine ranking. If you need any help with your SEO efforts, reach out to Marketing Tiki today!