10 Important SEO Success Factors to Rank In Google

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The Ever-Dynamic World of SEO

The SEO world is ever dynamic. And to keep up with the pace is often challenging. While there are many SEO experts everywhere, it is not easy to track the algorithms that keep changing daily.
If the SEO world has to be described in one proverb, it can be put as ‘change is the only constant.’ As per Moz, Google’s algorithm changes around 500-600 times each year.
While many of these changes are often looked upon, some majorly impact how a website ranks in the search engine. Also, given that not everyone can always keep track of these, it becomes essential to focus on other significant areas and factors that strongly affect a link’s ranking on the Google Search Engine.
A well-optimized site can generate more traffic and eventually good leads and sales, which is the ultimate goal of any business.

How Effective SEO Drives Business?

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Gone are the days when people refer to a telephone directory to contact others. In this age of modern technology, anything and everything is available on the internet.
For example, if you don’t like dry cleaning services in one place, the internet has 20 more to offer you.
While it is easier to type a company’s name and find it ranking on the top, what are the odds that the same business is ranked on the top when typed about the business’s nature?
Successful businesses have always focused on SEO to strengthen their online presence, knowing where their customers spend most of their time. Today in this blog, we will see some of the major SEO success factors and how you can harness them to rank on the top of your SEO game.

1. Create an Easily-accessible Website for Your customers

When your website does not let your users access it quickly, it calls for an increased drop rate. For this, the website must be user-friendly for common people and for the ones who are differently-abled.
Some websites fail to load, which not only annoys the users but also pushes them away from revisiting your brand/business.
According to the World Wide Web Consortium, website accessibility is about designing and developing websites that people with disabilities can use easily. This also includes tools and technologies. Also, you need the correct URL that Google can quickly identify and crawl.
If you are wondering how to make your website more accessible to your customers, then here are 5 ways you can make your website more accessible to your readers:

• A rightly built and well-coded website
• Adding images with Alt Text
• Allowing users to enlarge font sizes
• Accessibility to multimedia and videos
• Using descriptive URLs

HTTPS is another factor that can determine your site rank.
By working on these issues, you can expect a better ranking for your website. Besides, the website's aesthetics also play a major role in deciding if a viewer should stay or bounce.
Keep your website simple and aesthetically pleasing. A cluttered website can lead to a bad user experience who might not later come back to your page for more.

Related : Importance of UX for an eCommerce site & How it Impacts your SEO?

2. Publish Engaging & High-quality Contents

It is generally said that content is the King. But what you need to know is that it is everything else too! Imagine a website with just design and no text in it.
People would hardly understand. While pictorial representations do have value, Google cannot crawl or read through pictures. The algorithm works majorly for text. Good content is the core of SEO.
The websites should aim to produce high-quality content in your niche.
While creating engaging content is essential, you should also know the right way to structure it on your website.
For instance, make sure there are at least 300 words on each page and the original content. Keep the language simple and free of jargon. Well-written content is something that does not require people to refer to dictionaries rather understand the gist easily!
Additionally, avoid puddling content on a single page. Instead, segregate them under various headings. This helps in better crawling. Make sure your content adheres to Google’s EAT criteria (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
Another way to achieve this is by adding as many citing and links as possible. Remember, your content can make or break your website, and so it is a minister too!

3. Optimize Your Website for Faster speed

How long do you wait before the webpage loads?
The moment it crosses five seconds, you skip to another. This is a general behavior of all those who surf the internet. That’s why it is important to have a web page that loads faster with no glitch.
Your bounce rate is inversely proportional to your page speed. Better speed, better visitors. The slower the page, the more the bounce rate.
As per most SEOs, a good website should maintain a bounce rate of 40% or below.
This is why page speed is an essential factor for SEO ranking. Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool to check your page speed. Additionally, it is also important to check how it performs on a mobile device too owing to the number of people skimming pages through their phones.

4. Take Advantage of the Age of the Domain

Domain age is another essential factor to consider when it comes to ranking.
That’s why prior to starting a website, one should search for expired domains that are close to your niche or keywords from the ‘expired domains’ platform and purchase. Also, look when Google last indexed it, Alexa rank, and if the users still search it.
The older your site, the better the ranking. This is another reason why many big firms purchase ‘aged’ sites just for the zing it comes with. But what matters here is not how old your page is but how old it has been since it got indexed by Google.
Sites are generally devalued in the first few months since Google is indexing. If one copes up this phase, then the page is all good to go.
One thing to understand is that it doesn’t mean it’s ten years old if the domain has been for ten years. Google should have had the site indexed. This is when content comes to play.
As mentioned previously, good content is the essence of good SEO, and without that, no matter how old the domain is, it might still not rank properly in the search engines.

5. Fix Technical SEO Issues

Not everyone’s a coder. While a well-coded webpage is essential to rank in search engines, many often find it very intimidating. SEO specialists often use a checklist to keep a tab on.
While good content can rank, not optimizing them or having unresolved SEO issues can be a barrier in making it rank. Here are some quick fixes that you can concentrate on even if you are not a techie or a coder:

• Adding the right amount of keywords in page titles. This is where Google first looks up to find relevant content for a search query.
• Use header tags. A piece of content structured in the hierarchy has a better ranking ability. Structure them as h1, h2, h3.
  Search engines can determine header tags that help recognize your content structure while giving results to the audience.
  
• Meta descriptions can help you rank better as it serves as a snapshot for the readers. An engaging and intruding meta description can drive people to click your link.

6. Deliver High-quality Experience for Mobile Users

Gone are the days when people were glued to a desktop. Gone are the days of laptops too! The modern era sees people walking with tabs and how mobile phones have become a primary and basic need for everyone.
While there are so many factors that determine your site ranking, it is necessary to understand, above all, how and where your customers come from and how they are viewing your content.
Going by a city bus and seeing a humongous hoarding is great, but not all brands can afford it, and that’s the very reason why digital marketing is a boon to many. It is the biggest gift that any brand can have.
People view their phones for at least four hours a day, and that’s where they see brands and get to know more about them. As an SEO expert, you should determine that the content is viewed the right way, irrespective of what the device is.
Here are some latest stats by review 42 that suggest why businesses shouldn’t neglect mobile-friendly sites.
Cluttered or a poor mobile-friendly design can make your visitors drop from proceeding, further increasing the bounce rate.
A site with a good, responsive design can generate more traffic and improve viewer retention to that site. So, create a website that can adapt to any device and still provide a de-cluttered design.

7. Earn Links Naturally

While building blocks is a child’s play, building links is not. It can be challenging but is worth every effort as it is one of the most prominent factors that determine your site ranking on a search engine. Links are like currencies for a webpage. The more the links, the more authoritative the page is.
There’s no single method to follow when you work with links. While some SEO experts believe that by generating amazing content, one can wait for links naturally, others believe in strategies. Again, there is no said method.
Everything depends on how algorithms change. Here’s how link building is usually done.

• Manually adding links to websites
• Reaching out to other websites and proposing a strong reason to link
  for instance, informing them about a broken link and requesting to replace it with yours.
  
• Naturally earning links because of awesome-sauce content
• Buying links
• Preserving previously earned links

Guest blogging is a great way to generate links. In layman’s terms, link building forms a vicious circle for SEO where the webpages inter-loop, and that, when clicked, forms a plus one for that site which eventually helps in ranking.

8. Analyze Your Social Signals

A brand’s best friend is social media. Yes, social media offers a platform for all brands equally. To what extent they harness this provision is up to brands.
Many brands have used the power of social media the right way to boost their user engagement.
As per DataReportal, there are currently 4.20 billion social media users around the globe. That is almost half the world population.
Imagine your content being out there in the open for such a wide population to view and know your brand. This can mean a super large population bringing huge traffic to your site.
Adding quality links to your social media handles like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., can draw more links and eventually lead. If you are wondering how social media helps SEO, here’s all you need to know:

• It paves the way for extensive distribution of content
• Your posts will have a longer life span as they can always have new views
• Posting on social media can help you build strong online visibility
  It helps connect with a more relevant audience at a more personal level and lets them connect and contact you directly.
  
• Improved brand reputation and recognition
• Better and improved local SEO

While social media might seem all flowery, it is important to remember to play by the rules. For example, being a huge number of followers can eventually backfire. Also, avoid spamming or purchasing links. Finally, stand firm on your niche than divulging in many at a time.

9. Make Use of the Featured Snippet Option

If you want attention from Google, then you better buck-up to stay up to date with all of the features at all times! While these are ever dynamic, as an SEO expert, you should always have an eye for those changes and work that way to stay on top of any search engine.
Studies show how the use of snippets has helped in growing traffic. Nearly 30% of search results in Google have featured snippets.
Why is it a great deal, you ask?
Well, snippets give answers to exactly what someone searches on the search engine. Generally, snippets contain bullet points, numbers, and much more than giving simple answers to what people are searching for.
It gives quick answers to the user queries, after which most people land on that page or close it as they get what they searched for.
The first step to getting to featured snippets is to find pages that have them and understand how and what words are ranking for them. Also, check the snippet style that your competitors are using. It can be a listicle, or descriptive, or a table.

Related : How to Use Schema Markup Values on Local SEO?

Use the right keywords. A snippet is usually 40-60 words long.

10. Have Better Crawlability

There are a million site pages out there. With such a tough competition, it becomes challenging to make Google rank your site. The ability of GoogleBot to be able to locate your site is called crawlability. Broken links are a major cause of poor crawlability.
Google Search Console is a great tool to check how many of your site pages have it crawled. Here are some factors that affect the crawlability of your site:

• Structure of the website - Your website’s main pages should be linked to and from anywhere on the site. It is also good to have other pages linked to various other authoritative and relevant websites.
• Internal Linking - Google reads pages based on links. As mentioned before, it is a vicious circle when it comes to internal linking. If you have a blog post on a topic mentioned in an article, link it.
  Here’s a beautifully depicted internal linking structure.
  
• Broken links and server errors - No one likes to be directed to a site that leads to an error page. This is a poor user experience, and people might not go further and explore your site. Users tend to bounce from websites like these. The same goes with GoogleBot. When it finds a broken link, it does not crawl further, restricting your ranking.

You can have better crawlability by regularly updating your content and revamping it with better, authoritative, and reliable links. When it comes to ranking your page, plagiarism plays another important role.
Avoid it at any cost, as this might even lead to being sued. Work on your page speed. Every resource on the internet is given time to be crawled. If your webpage is slow, then there might not be the right crawlability.

Up-Ing the SEO Game the Right Way

There are so many ways to right your website to rank in search engines. Another great tip is to be on your toes and make sure your business is listed in GMB. It is a great source to boost local SEO, which is another great factor in ranking a page.
While SEO experts constantly juggle between pleasing the search engine and at the same time pleasing the audience, it becomes challenging to keep up with the pace.
The real essence of SEO lies in balancing both. Create unique content that your audience loves. Use the right amount of SEO strategies to optimize your content because unless you do it, your audience won’t find your content.
Working with your customer in mind works from a more viable solution to make your business worthier. Harness the power of SEO and rank to become the best. What are you waiting for?
Get a personal 1-on-1 consultation with our SEO experts to know more about the success factors.