Any online marketer that depends on Google for traffic must pay attention to the main Google ranking factors. Google uses over 200 various ranking factors to determine the position of a web page on the search results. It’s impossible for anyone to optimize a page using all the Google ranking factors. Not all those ranking factors are important, but some are certainly a must have.
Therefore, if you want to improve your website visibility on the Google search then focus on the main ranking factors. These SEO best practices will significantly improve your ranking signals thereby increasing your site rank on the search result pages. Your website will make more money when your site ranking increases on the Google engine.
Also Read : SEO Tips for Beginners
The main Google ranking factors you should implement to drive massive traffic from Google search result pages and generate more revenue.
1. Backlinks
Backlinks are links from another website to your website. They are an important factor Google’s search algorithm uses to rank web pages in the search results. Quality backlinks from authority websites can help promote your site on top of Google search.
Website with many quality backlinks is an indication of relevancy or importance. Building quality backlinks from relevant and high ranking websites is an effective SEO technique that can influence your rankings.
When your website has many quality backlinks, Google search engine will assume that your website is more relevant than others and will rank it site high in search result pages.
Related : Best Competitor Backlink Checker tools
2. Content
Google algorithm gives importance to websites that publish high-quality content. The era when website pages rank with low-level of content has long gone. These days Google give high ranking signals to websites with useful and original content.
Google wants to make sure that online searchers are provided with original content that can meet their needs. If you want to gain more search engine credibility and attract more readers, then make sure you are publishing high-quality content.
3. Mobile Friendly Site
A recent study by Google has shown that the number of online users that come through mobile devices has been huge for the past decade and the number is growing every day. Take a look in any public place these days; you will see many people browsing the Internet with their phones.
The high rise in mobile users motivated Google to include the mobile friendly website in their ranking factors. This factor provides mobile phone searchers with exciting user experience and satisfaction. Mobile optimized sites help mobile users to enjoy powerful features which desktop users are enjoying.
4. Keyword in Page Title
The presence of a keyword in the page title is a vital on-page SEO strategy that can increase your website ranking. The page title is important of part of the content and having your keyword on it will help search engines to categorize the web page.
Page title will tell Google search what your web page is all about and how they should display your page in the search results. Having keyword in the page title will enable Google search to distinguish one page of your site from another.
5. Keyword in Meta Description Tag
The placement of keyword in Meta description will help improve your page ranking and click-through rates. Google will display the summary of your Meta description in search results snippet.
Obviously, Meta description tag is important for attracting user clicks from search results pages. Ensure you create unique Meta description tags that are optimally between 150 – 160 characters long.
6. Using Keyword in your Content
Keywords are the most frequently used words and phrases in your content. They are what online user’s type in the Google search box to locate their choice content through various relevant websites.
Google will look at the keyword in your content before it can rank your web page. Including the keyword in the page’s copy sends a relevancy signal of what your content is about. If you want to attract targeted traffic from Google, then make sure that the keywords on your content are what people can use to find your site.
7. Keyword Prominence
When writing content for your website, it’s important to pay attention to the keyword prominence because of the role it plays in page ranking. Keyword prominence has to do with how noticeable your keywords are on your page.
Ensure that your important keyword phrases appear in the first 100 words of your page’s body. This is a practical step that can help optimize your web page with targeted keywords and increase your ranking signals.
8. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content occurs when identical content appears on different websites. When the same content shows up on multiple URL, it makes it difficult for Google search to decide the one that will be more useful to a search query resulting in page demotion.
Publishing duplicate content is a bad marketing tactic that can hurt your site ranking and rub you much traffic.
9. Content Updates
Regular website content updates will increase your ranking signals and drive traffic to your website. Google is always looking for new information it can analyze and rank in the search results.
Websites that regularly update their content have a greater opportunity of getting attention from Google search, resulting in higher website rank.
10. Internal Links
These are links that connect one post of a website to another. Linking internal pages of your website is an important search engine optimization strategy you can implement to increase your website rank on Google search.
Internal links help Google to access the hidden pages of your website. Google bots work faster on a website with clear navigation which internal links will provide. This ranking factor can reduce your bounce rates, giving readers more reasons to stay on your site.
11. Link Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible phrases and words that hyperlink display when you link to pages of your site or another site. Google algorithm places more importance on link anchor text. Google uses link anchor text to determine the description of the linked to an article.
It’s a bad SEO practice to link out to other content on the web by using any text you want and expect the search engine to give rank to that link. You must use appropriate anchor text that is relevant to the content of the source page. Avoid using the phrase “click here” or “see this”.
12. Start Page Title with Keyword
Starting your page title with the keyword will increase your ranking signals. This is because Google places more value on the first word of content.
Your page title will appear on the Google snippet and will add more credibility to your content when a keyword is written first.
13. Keyword Density
Having too many keywords in your content is a bad search engine optimization practice that can get your page penalized by Google. Knowing your keyword density will help you avoid over-optimization that can hurt your site ranking.
14. Page Loading Speed
Page loading time is another main factor Google uses to rank websites in the search results. Websites that take much time to load will definitely suffer traffic loss.
Google is friendly to sites that quickly responds to web requests. Online users place so much value on website speed and find it difficult to spend more time on a website that responds slowly.
15. User-Friendly Layout
User-friendly website layout can easily adjust to fit reader’s devices, giving them wonderful browsing experience of your content and products. This type of layout allows your site visitors to easily navigate and access the content of your site without design interrupting their task.
16. Presence of Sitemaps
Having updated sitemaps on your site will help boost your website rank. Sitemaps help Google to easily crawl and index your web pages.
Submitting your updated sitemaps will help Googlebot to easily view a list of hidden web addresses on your pages.
17. Image Optimization
Image optimization has to do with the essential image practices that will increase the visibility of your web page. The essential image practices include the use of relevant images, descriptive file name, alt tags, and moderate file size. Optimizing your images with these elements will help increase traffic to your post.
18. Outbound Link Quality
If you want outbound links to improve your page authority and ranking, then ensure you are linking out to high authority sites. Don’t make the mistake of linking out to domains that will devalue your page. High-quality outbound links will help increase trust signals to Google.
19. Website Usability
Your website usability includes its function, features, cross browser compatibility, responsiveness and much more. All these elements and more play a vital role in the visibility of your web pages on Google search.
20. Broken Links
Broken links can hurt your site ranking and user experience. Google is not friendly to a website that gives “404” errors. Broken links can stop Googlebot from crawling and indexing your page. Any page that Googlebot does not crawl and index will not be able to receive a rank.
There are many other factors Google puts into consideration when ranking your web pages. However, these are the most important factors that will greatly increase your website position on the search results pages.