Google generates up to 90% of global organic traffic. That is why getting to Google’s top results is the aim of every website.
However, only the most relevant ones will be displayed within the first Google search result pages. Maintaining a website’s health and performance is essential for achieving results. Due to growing competition, you need to understand and effectively optimize core SEO factors to maintain your site’s visibility.
Let’s review the most essential seven ranking factors, how they impact search visibility and ranking, and how Percofect can simplify your SEO efforts.
Understanding How Google Algorithms Work
The Google algorithm considers over 1000 factors to evaluate and rank all the websites in its index. Recent changes in Google SERPs prove a new trend. Google prioritizes big, authoritative websites over smaller, lesser-known ones. We also notice the prioritization of websites that users commonly choose and click on in SERPs.
Let’s consider more essential SEO factors influencing the ranking of websites.
To rank websites, Google applies the E-E-A-T model. The abbreviation stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
It considers multiple factors, like backlinks, mentions, and the reputation of the content creators, to evaluate whether a website deserves its position in Google’s top-10 results. You can check these factors in the Google Quality Raters Guidelines.
However, the factors of authority, expertise, experience, and trustworthiness come into play only to rank the websites within the top 10 results and do not influence the websites behind the first SERP. A website needs high-quality technical and external optimization (via links and mentions) to be worthy of ranking in Google’s Top.
The Ahrefs research shows that 90% of websites globally receive zero organic traffic. This means they rank outside Google’s first, second, or third pages of search results. Quality technical optimization aims to make a website fit the quality requirements of Google’s top.
Keywords should appear in page titles, headers, and throughout your content. Be cautious to avoid over-optimization. It is better to maintain a 1-2% keyword density.
Your website structure should align with keyword clusters to ensure that the content is logically organized and easily accessible to users and search engine bots. Logical connections of pages improve crawlability and indexability.
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Backlink quality and health maintenance
Google estimates website authority based on the number of backlinks pointing to this website, their quality, and the reputation of the linking websites. The links are like votes for the website.
On April 1, 1998, Google introduced the PageRank algorithm. It used backlinks as a key factor in estimating and calculating a webpage’s importance and relevance. PageRank assigns a value to each link. Links from authoritative sites pass a higher value, while links from lesser-known websites pass a lower value. This basic principle applies to core ranking algorithms in Google and many other search engines. PageRank determines a website’s position in SERPs.
Here is a list of key recommendations for building a healthy backlink profile:
- Quality over quantity: Getting one link from a reputable website is better than multiple links from low-quality websites. One of the lesser-known Google principles is that the harder it is to get a link, the higher its quality. For example, you can register multiple accounts of free forums and post dozens of links. Or you can reach out to a reputable website and negotiate your contribution to their content ecosystem, providing a piece of highly valuable and useful content optimized to their target audience’s pain points.
- Avoid link manipulation: Google has determined common schemes of link manipulation when SEO experts use links to manipulate the rankings of their websites. Initially, Google applied penalties to those websites by excluding them from SERP. But later, it introduced a new practice of not counting manipulative links obtained solely to improve webpage ranking. One of the factors determining link quality is its usefulness for users. If the link is useful, then it will participate in ranking.
- Use the Disavow Tool: To help webmasters and SEO experts maintain the health of their backlink profiles, Google has introduced the Disavow Tool, which allows them to decline links that may negatively impact a website’s ranking.
- Create native, relevant content: Google estimates the link and the content it appears in. You need to analyze the website content from which you will obtain a link to craft a relevant and native article. Do not use generic articles, AI-generated content, or other automated ways of content creation. Do not multiply the same article. The content should be unique and original, tailored to the website you are submitting an article to and its audience.
- Avoid over-optimization: In case of over-optimization and over-manipulation, Google applies automatic filtering and downranking. If this happens, you cannot restore the previous ranking by declining your actions, such as deleting links or content or disavowing links. Recovery from search engine filters commonly takes from 3 to 12 months. Some websites are not able to recover in SERP. To maintain your site’s SEO health, ensure your link-building strategies comply with search engine rules and requirements.
- Get different links: Links from various sources and types of websites look more natural for search engines and are less likely to get penalized.
- Regularly check your backlink profile: If you see a link boost, changes in SERP positions, or organic traffic, the first factor you should check is your backlink profile. Whether these changes are negative or positive, backlink profile monitoring provides valuable insights to inform your further SEO actions.
We recommend that you follow search engines on social networks and regularly check their official blogs to know about algorithmic updates. This will also help inform your link building strategy.
Google aims to show users the most convenient pages. If the page is slow in downloading and responding to user actions, this is a signal for the algorithm to downrank it and show faster websites in higher positions. Google provides a free tool to check website speed. You can check your website and the competitors to estimate the average and optimize your speed.
You should aim for a load time of under 2 seconds. Websites with higher load times feature higher bounce rates, which, in turn, are a negative signal for search engines.
In March 2020, Google announced for the whole web. This means that Google bots estimate and consider only accessible content on mobile versions. If less content is accessible on your mobile version or is less optimized, it can result in lower SERP positions. If your website does not have a mobile version, Google will crawl and evaluate the desktop pages in a mobile view format.
You will not reach the top positions if the content is not optimized for mobile screens. You can check your site’s responsiveness with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. If it lacks optimization, you need to optimize it for mobile screens to improve user experience and SERP positions.
The elements such as meta titles, meta descriptions, and ALT attributes help search engines better understand what your page is about. Meta titles should feature up to 50-60 characters, meta descriptions should be within 150-160, and ALT text should precisely name what a user can see on images. The meta tags and attributes should feature keywords but avoid over-optimization. Keyword stuffing is one more signal of ranking manipulation for search engines.
Correctly optimized titles and descriptions will appear in search and improve your pages’ click-through rate in search results—a balanced approach to on-page website optimization to maximize the effectiveness of your SEO efforts.
Content quality is one of the most arguable SEO aspects. There are no indicators that can ensure usefulness and value for target users. Neither correct grammar, text format, nor style prove content quality. However, you need quality content to rank on search engines. Google estimates content quality using the E-E-A-T model (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
The main recommendations to maintain content quality are the following:
- Know your users and their intent. No matter how interesting your content is, it is useless if it does not solve a user problem.
- Conduct research before crafting your next piece. Look at what your competitors write, how they write, and their rankings.
- Try to make content engaging. Add visuals, facts, infographics, interactive elements, and even internal links that will help users improve their search experience and satisfy their search intent.
- Check your content and update it to keep it fresh. This will help to maintain its value and usefulness.
Google considers content’s relevance to user intent, factual accuracy, and additional value. One signal for search engines that content is valuable and relevant is that a user does not go back to search after visiting your website. This means that a search intent is satisfied.
Well-optimized structure, crawlability, and indexability determine how your website performs in search results. Let us review critical details to consider:
- Site structure: A logically built website is easier to navigate for users and search robots. Pay attention to how far from the main page other website pages are located. Flat site architecture with a maximum of 3-4 clicks from the homepage helps users find necessary content faster. You can also use breadcrumb navigation to improve navigation, as it lets users know where they are at the moment and how this page is related to others.
- Indexability: Check whether search engines index your website. You can do this by searching for your website with relevant keywords. It does not matter what position a page takes. If it is featured in SERP, then it is indexed. XML sitemap is another way to submit all necessary pages to search engines and add them to the index. Check the search engine requirement for the file and keep it updated.
- Broken links: Broken links are links that point to non-existing pages. They do not pass any value and do not lead traffic. You need to regularly check your backlink profile for broken links and fix them. To fix a broken link, you need to reach out to the linking website and suggest a relevant page to link to. If editing the broken link is impossible, it is better to disavow such a link.
- Duplicate content: Duplicate content is similar to another piece on your website. Such content confuses users and makes it difficult to reach the search goal. You can manage duplicate content with canonical tags (<link rel= “canonical” href= “URL”>), but it is better to replace it with an original piece.
- XML sitemap errors: Your XML sitemap should contain only the necessary URLs of your website. None of the technical or temporary pages should be on the list. The bots have a crawling budget that limits the number of pages they can scan per visit. The random pages on the XML sitemap will exhaust the budget. The crawlers will visit unnecessary pages, leaving important ones unnoticed.
How Percofect Can Improve Your SEO Efforts
Percofect offers SEO tools to optimize your website, precisely maintaining its SEO health and search performance.
Here is what you can get with Percofect:
- Detailed website analysis: Percofect offers comprehensive website analysis, checking over 100 parameters and comparing them to averages to determine which areas of your website or SEO need attention.
- Site vs. site analysis: This tool allows you to compare your website’s performance to that of a competitor side by side. You will see your website’s and competitor’s metrics. This will help you optimize your SEO strategy when you need to outrank your key rivals in SERPs.
- Keyword and content optimization: Percofect helps find high-volume keywords and make your content more relevant and engaging. User factors are of utmost importance for ranking. If users interact with your content, this is one of the positive signals for search engines that your website is worth attention.
- Backlink and technical SEO monitoring: Percofect helps you check the health of your backlink profile, monitor technical SEO, and fix broken links, duplicate content, and other technical aspects.
Percofect: The All-In-One Solution For Your SEO Success
With Percofect, you can check any website, yours or competitors’, to get necessary insights for optimizing your SEO strategy, improving your website, backlink profile, content, and so on.
Easily manage your SEO strategy, tune the factors that really impact search engine rankings, and balance your efforts. Get all the necessary tools in one set.
Search engines remain the main source of organic traffic to websites. You can not outplay their algorithms; however, equipped with the necessary tools, you can optimize your website to be relevant and compliant. Maintain your website’s health and search performance with Percofect.
