Search Engine Ranking Factors.
What do search engines look for?
Google doesn’t care what kind of business you are or what your marketing objectives might be. Search engines have their own agenda and when it comes to SEO it’s all about awarding high-ranking positions to pages that provide the following:
Accessibility
Before search engines can rank your pages, they need to be able to access them.
Quality Content
This means relevant, unique and useful content that provides the answers users are looking for when they type in a query.
Great User Experience (UX)
Your website is an extension of the search experience and Google wants to see great UX from your pages. This includes Page Load Speed.
Engagement
Quality content and great UX should keep users on your site and engaging with your content, which is precisely what search engines want to see.
Optimisation
All the optimisation essentials that make pages easy for search engines and users to understand.
What Do Search Engine's Look For?
1. Relevancy
Search engines are smart and they try to provide the most updated, relevant information to searchers. Whether it’s a simple question or a more complex query, search engines will always filter the best, most relevant information out there (being relevant to your target audience can really go a long way in terms of attracting organic traffic.)
2. Quality of Content
Quality content rules, Google and other search engines have developed a new found love for the quality of the content. One way of creating quality content is to write for your audience and not for the search engines.
3. User Experience
User experience, is how a visitor feels when they are on your website. The overall site design, color combination, navigation, and content contribute to the user experience.
4. Page Load Speed
After mobile friendly, how fast your website loads is a deciding factor in terms of SEO. Google has recently started penalizing web pages that load slow.
5. Compatibility
Websites are required to be responsive and optimized for different screen sizes.
6. Internal Linking
It is one of the most useful SEO techniques out there and probably the most overlooked as well. Here is what it can do for your website:
- Reduce bounce rates.
- Help readers find more relevant content.
- Help with the index.
7. Meta Descriptions
Meta description might not help with SEO, but, it is vital to attracting people to click your Search Engine listing.
8. Schema Markup
It makes your appearance more attractive on the search results with the help of rich media, five-star ratings, customer ratings and FAQ’s.
9. Image Tagging
Google can only read the information you provide about your images. The “alt text” is a short summary of the picture which helps search engines identify it. You can also use your main keywords in alt text but don’t overdo this.
10. Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is search-optimized content that is continually relevant and stays “fresh” for readers over a long period of time.
