5 Most Important Factors in SEO and Ranking on Search Engines
As you’re probably aware Google (along with other search engines) uses a lot of signals to determine the ranking of any given webpage. The factors that they use are constantly shifting, as they make improvements to their algorithms in order to display the most relevant results. But as much as there are hundreds (or possibly more) factors that determine the ultimate ranking on search engines, there are some that are definitely more important than others. Knowing these factors is a good place to start, as they will have a big impact on your SEO if they are improved.
1st Accessibility
Before search engines can rank your website they need to be able to access and crawl it. That is what makes this factor so important, as without it nothing else would matter. Aside from the fact that your website should be accessible, there are steps that you can take to make it easier for search engines to know where to look. The two most important are a robots.txt file as well as a sitemap that lists all the webpage’s on your site.
2nd Mobile-Friendliness
As more and more people have started to surf the web on mobile devices, search engines have reacted to improve their experience. Now that more people surf the web on mobile devices than desktop PCs, it should come as no surprise that Google uses a mobile-first index. Simply put this means that it is essential that your website is optimized for mobile devices. Ideally, it should use a responsive design that caters to different screen sizes. On top of that, you should also make sure your text is readable on smaller screens, and your navigation can be accessed easily via taps (as opposed to clicks). The best SEO services will go further than that and improve the mobile user experience across the board.
3rd Page Speed
In the last few years, search engines have started to prioritize page speed to improve their users’ experience. Suffice to say if your WebPages don’t load quickly enough, they aren’t likely to rank very well. The good news is that you can use Google’s own Page Speed Insights tool to check how your WebPages stack up and find ways to improve them. It should be noted that your website needs to load quickly on both desktops as well as mobile devices or you could be in trouble. Some of the changes that are required may be a bit technical and could impact the accessibility of your website. As such it is best to proceed with caution or use a reliable SEO service agency.
4th Content
For a long time, the ‘content is king’ mantra was at the core of SEO, and honestly, things haven’t changed all that much. Content is still kind – but its focus has shifted somewhat. Instead of coming up with content that is heavily keyword optimized, it is more important to make sure that your content is high quality, relevant, and useful. It is best to flesh out any thin content and try to provide more comprehensive information wherever possible. All in all, it is better to come up with or enlist an SEO service agency to produce good, long-form content that really helps readers out than short, keyword-optimized drivel.
5th Backlinks
backlinks are what inbound links are commonly known as in SEO – and they are undeniably important. Search engines figure that if a website feels yours’ is useful enough to link to – it counts as a vote in its favor. Keep in mind that search engines frown on low-quality or spammed links. That is why the best SEO services are very careful of the backlinks that they build, and ideally try to focus on high-authority websites. In fact, it may be best to have your SEO service agency try to remove backlinks from low-quality or suspect websites – or at very least disavow them.
Conclusion
If you focus on optimizing the 5 factors listed above initially, your SEO will definitely be in much better shape. After that, you can look into all the other many factors that could also influence your ranking – and see what you can improve there.
