Search engine ranking factors you must never ignore

Google search page on laptop screen
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Everyone wants to improve their ranking in search engine results pages (SERP). The best way to achieve this is through search engine optimization (SEO), the process used to enhance your website’s ranking in search engines.

In simple terms, SEO increases or boosts the number of web visitors visiting a particular website through search engine queries. It also helps to improve your website’s overall visibility in search engines. It is also a marketing technique that allows website owners to increase the quality and quantity of traffic on their site.

However, writing content that appeals both to search engines and visitors is not easy. Google regularly updates its search algorithms to ensure search results are relevant to their users. The primary concern for SEO is to make it easy for visitors to access your website content. It also helps bloggers maximize their efforts when generating content.

Due to technological advances, which made it easier to improve our SEO using tools, techniques keep on changing with time. What was productive two years ago will not work today. Therefore, as a website owner, you always need to update your SEO efforts to make them work. It is not easy, though, and an entrepreneur needs to choose between keywords, Meta description or link building. This article will show you various ways search engines use to rank your website.

The website structure

The structure of your website matters in ranking websites. Therefore I suggest making the structure simple to the point. Complex structures are not the best since it confuses the visitor who will be so busy trying to comprehend how your website works. Search engines prefer a well-structured web page and subpages when ranking sites. Search engines want the web owner to provide the best user experience to your visitors. Therefore you should always keep your website’s design simple and easy to navigate if you want to rank better in SERP.

URL should be brief and relevant

Your URL is essential and should provide hints of what your website is all about. Make it short and relevant to avoid users speculating and guessing what your website is all about. In case you are not familiar with URL, it stands for a Uniform Resource Locator, also called a web address. It’s used to specify the location of the website or page on the internet.

The URL of your website should be well crafted for both the search engine and the visitor to understand the destination page. A valid URL also serves as anchor text, which can be further copied and pasted as links. If the search engine can’t understand what your URL is talking about, you won’t rank well on SERP.

Try removing the zombie pages

Not all pages are given the same importance in search engines. Your homepage has more weight than other pages on your website. Zombie pages are those pages that don’t bring traffic to your site. These pages always lower your ranking, and that is why it is crucial to remove these pages on your website. If your content is bloated with low-quality pages, Google will disregard them. Do an audit on your website to help you establish where these pages are and delete them to improve your SERP.

Usage of a primary keyword is important

Websites are optimized with different keywords that are relevant to your content. Keywords are critical in any SEO strategy, and targeting them naturally in your web content makes it easy for search engines to place your site somewhere better. You can also incorporate your targeted keywords on your URL.

The keywords you are going to use will define your web pages or posts. Many visitors search the web using a single keyword, and if you have targeted it directly, you will surely score well on your SEO efforts. Search engines treasure keywords as they help them pinpoint where your website is and that is why keywords are used to determine where your website falls when it comes to SERP.

Keywords also define the nature of your business and niche. However, when using keywords and search terms to generate your content, make sure that they appear naturally in the content.

Use hyphens instead of underscores in your URL

As we said, your URL plays a significant role when it comes to the best SEO practices. Therefore, when creating them, you should never use underscores in your URL, since Google does not recognize it as a separator. Google only sees the underscore as a word joiner, and it will read it as a single word. It also affects your ranking. Therefore Google prefers hyphens over underscores when ranking websites. Hyphens are the best when it comes to optimizing your URL.

Do some industry research

It’s always good to do some industry research to bring backlinks from various authoritative blogs and news sites. It is a sure way to bring traffic to the website. It also helps to spread mentions and social shares. Industry searches also show whether you have targeted the right keywords or not. You will know what is working for your competitors so that you can target the same search phrases in your content to make them useful.

Conclusion

The best way to maximize your website visibility is to know what search engines are looking for when ranking websites. If you don’t know the ranking factors, you won’t know what strategy to implement in your SEO Services. Site visibility is crucial if you want to succeed in your online business. By structuring your website well, using the right targeted key, and optimizing your URL, you stand a better chance of ranking high in SERP.

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