Semalt Shares Complete SEO List Of TOP 25 Website Ranking Criteria On Google
It is now widely known that SEO has become complex. With the latest upgrades to its algorithm, Google uses more than 200 criteria to rank web pages according to the terms a user enters in its search engine.
However, the exact number of these criteria does not matter. What ultimately counts is that there are specific key steps you need to follow if you want to emerge victorious in the battle of online competition and launch your website SEO to the highest level.
It is also important to keep in mind that these criteria do not have the same weight. Some of them are a cornerstone of any SEO strategy, while some add almost no value. At the same time, there is a very close relevance of each SEO strategy to the topic of the website, the market scope and the competition that it presents.
So if you have just created your new website or even if your online presence counts months or years and you are trying to improve your Google search engine rankings, you are in the right place. A detailed list of the 35 most powerful and necessary SEO criteria follows.
ON-PAGE SEO factors
The way the website is structured and optimized plays perhaps the most important role in the rankings it will achieve. The factors listed relate to the formatting of the website itself and affect its traceability in search engines.
Keyword in the title (title tag)
The title (title tag) of a web page (and its internal pages) is one of the strongest relevancy criteria for search engines. The term title tag means the central title of a search result.
The words in the title tag indicate to the search engine exactly what to look for within the page. Ideally, the keyword should be placed at the beginning of the title tag. Pages optimized in this way rank higher for that keyword than pages where the keyword is placed at the end of the title tag.
Word keyword in description tag
The value of the description tag has been downgraded from Google with the passage of time and the continuous updates of the search algorithm. However, the description tag always remains a sign of the relevance of a result in terms of the search term entered by the user and a key element that will lead the user to click on the specific result.
Keyword in H1 heading
H1-H6 headings are of particular importance to search engines. The H1 heading is a strong criterion for Google and also one of the most important factors in summarizing the key topic that each page analyzes. Each subpage of the website must necessarily include a unique H1 heading, which must be structured according to the most important keyword of the specific page.
H2 - H3 headings
The H1 heading is a necessary component of any website SEO. However, the headings H2, H3 are also particularly important. Ideally, each page should include H2-H3 headings with important keywords and give less weight to headings h4 to h6, as they have less of an impact on SEO.
Web page loading speed
One of the criteria for ranking web pages is now the navigation experience that the user gets when he / she is on them. Thus, Google now uses the loading time of the website as an important ranking factor, making reliable web hosting a prerequisite for high SEO results.
Inactive links (Broken links)
Many links that end up on pages that do not exist are usually a sign of an abandoned site, which negatively affects the quality of the website and therefore the experience that the user will gain while navigating it. You need to eliminate inactive links so that there is no risk of your site being downgraded by Google.
SSL certificate
Some time ago, Google confirmed that the use of an SSL certificate is a factor in evaluating websites, as it indicates websites with an increased security index. (i.e. HTTPS instead of HTTP) and the green security lock icon appears to the left of the URL.
Site architecture
A well-structured website helps Google to categorize the topics that make it up and thus improve its ranking in organic search results. It is therefore important to have a clear structure of the website and categorization of the topics so that the individual pages are easily accessible by Google robots.
URL Length
Too long a URL does not help Google's robots to get information about the website easily and therefore does not help the latter to climb higher rankings. Keep the URLs of the internal pages of your website small in size and completely relevant to the individual topics of each page.
Keyword in the URL
Each internal URL should be directly related to the topic that the specific subpage is dealing with and the best way for search engines to understand this is to include the main keyword of the internal page (e.g., www.cloudhaz.com/web-hosting).
Image Optimization
It is not only the text that can be optimized on a web page, but also the images as well. Robots can not perceive what is depicted in each image unless a clear description is given. The images sent signs the relevancy in the search engines through the alt tag, the caption and the title (description).
Duplicate content
Duplicate content is one of the factors that affect the ranking of the website in the most negative way. The same or even similar content between web pages degrades the rankings of the web page that it copies later than the other. Avoid copying content in any way (which in any case implies legal sanctions) and write original, quality and unique content for your website. The expression "Content is the king" is not accidental and finds absolute and meaningful application in the case of SEO.
Content length
With changes to the search algorithm, Google has upgraded the value of the content, rating its uniqueness and whether it provides valuable information on the topic at hand. It is common sense that the larger the content of the website, the more likely it is to cover more aspects of the topic, provide important information and therefore be useful to users who read it. Google, evaluating the impression that the website ultimately leaves on the user, positively rates the extensive content, considering that the websites that apply this tactic are more likely to provide reliable and complete coverage of a topic.
Position of keywords in the content (Keyword prominence)
The content of each web page consists of keywords. However, the keyword (which should always be present in the heading H1) should be included in the first 100 words of the text as a sign of the text's relevance to the main topic. To find relevant keywords for your content, I recommend the all-in-one SEO tool, The Dedicated SEO Dashboard. You can read more about the tool here.
Content Update
Google rewards websites that provide up-to-date content to users. This does not mean that changes must be made constantly. However, it is a common practice to provide informative and relevant content through a blog. This process helps to increase the credibility of the website as well as its recognition as a point of interest in terms of content and continuous flow of information.
Sitemap
Using a sitemap helps machines categorize all the internal pages of a web page. It's the simplest and shortest way to inform Google about what the site contains.
Creating internal links (Internal linking)
Creating links between internal pages of the website gives significant value to any SEO strategy, as it is essentially considered that one page "suggests" as useful and worth mentioning the other. Every "vote" to another subpage of our website means increased weight in its rankings on Google.
Mobile optimization
Just about a year ago, 46% of users used only mobile devices to search the internet. This number is growing exponentially over time and recently Google upgraded the algorithm making mobile optimization one of the most important ranking factors for websites (contact for a free check of your website for this criterion).
OFF page SEO factors
In addition to the basic SEO optimizations that need to be done on the website itself and mentioned extensively above, external factors also play an important role in the search engine rankings you will receive. The OFF-page SEO process aims to generate links from other websites to yours (also known as the Link Building process) and is the most time consuming and demanding, as it requires a combination of several components to be considered successful. However, it adds a lot of value to the website, can boost the website rankings for individual keywords and greatly enhance any ON-Page SEO strategy. Basic ranking criteria are:
Number of domains linked to yours
The term "linked" means any link that another website "gives" to yours. Every reference to your website on another page is interpreted as a "vote of confidence" by Google. But we must keep in mind that not only the quantity but also the quality of these links is important.
Number of websites linked
There may be more links to your website than just one specific domain name. This is because the link may appear in areas that are repeated within the same web page (e.g., footer, sidebars, etc.). However, it is better to have a few links to avoid downgrading the value of the links.
Homepage links
Usually, the Homepage has a higher Page Rank than any other internal page and therefore links that come from it and not from internal subpages also add more value.
Domain trust
Trust counts. But how do you build trust on the internet? Every website on the internet has a trust mark. You can just think that Google considers websites with increased trustworthiness to be those that over time include quality content that adequately covers the topics they are dealing with and can in fact be considered authorities on the internet on the specific topics they deal with. It is therefore very useful to obtain links from such websites, as in fact a part of their authority is "transferred" to your website. It is also useful to create a website that will constantly increase its index of trust and credibility on the internet through rich and organized topics with unique and reliable content.
Number of dofollow / nofollow links
Google states that it does not consider nofollow links from a web page to ours. Therefore, it is useful to receive links only from websites that do not include a nofollow tag in the link they maintain to our website.
Different types of links (Links diversity)
The type of links that point to a web page also plays an important role. Many links of the same type can be considered black hat SEO signs (simply spam SEO methods) and negatively affect search engine rankings. This practically means that the links received should come from many different sources (e.g., from references to blogs, from relevant websites, from relevant directories, from references to social media, etc.).
Link anchor
The anchor text of a link (the text to which a web page links to another web page promotion, for example) is a powerful ranking sign of web pages that helps the keywords that the website is trying to promote. For this reason, it is best to avoid linking to irrelevant keywords (e.g., "click here for more"). Excessive use of this technique, however, can also be used as a sign of spam, negatively affecting the rankings of your website.
Social shares of a website
The presence on social media and strong references to them around our website, now help significantly in upgrading the rankings of the website even for a temporary period. Apart from that, the active presence on social media strengthens the brand of the company and therefore the possibility to receive future links to its content and thus, to improve OFF-Page SEO.
Conclusion
SEO has become complicated. The days when excessive use of some keywords in the content was enough to "trick" the search engines and give us a place on the first page are gone forever.
A set of individual criteria now determine the ability of each website to outperform the competition and there must be a synthesis of individual resources and capabilities in order to slowly conquer the road to the top.
Nevertheless, if you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.