Bloggers’ Guide to SEO: Maximizing Visibility and Driving Traffic
November 18, 2023
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SEO necessities are constantly changing, and it can be challenging to keep up with the latest developments. But if you need your Google ranking to rise from invisible to the top of the list, you must keep an eye on it.
Well-optimized websites get more and more traffic over time, which means more leads and sales. Without SEO, search engines won’t find your website, and all your hard work will be for nothing.
“What does SEO mean?” and explain the vital SEO ranking factors you need to dominate search results.
By the end of this report, you will have a well-optimized website that will bring you more business.
We’ve created this helpful content if you want to get to the SEO ranking factors that matter most to you.
At the end of this article, we finally answer the question that plagues most SEO beginners: which is more critical – pleasing Google or pleasing the audience?
Before we explore more detail about each ranking factor, let’s briefly review the basic principles of search engine ranking.
Many people wonder how Google ranking works.
So before we get to the fundamental factors that affect search engine rankings, let’s start by answering some of the fundamental questions that most people have about SEO.
SEO stands for search engine optimization, making websites more likely to be at the top of the rankings. But let’s be honest: at the moment, it means Google.
In SEO, it refers to the position of your content on search engine results pages (SERPs). A rank of 1 means that when people search for a term, your page is the first result (except for promoted results, featured snippets, and answer boxes, which we’ll discuss later in this guide).
“Google aims to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” An essential part of this goal is to provide relevant search results, and here’s how they work:
Firstly, Google’s search bots (automated software called “spiders”) navigate the web. We know this sounds intimidating, and web browsers are intimidating, but they are visiting websites.
Secondly, properly optimized and crawlable pages are added to the Google index and cataloged.
Thirdly, when people search on Google, it displays what it considers the most relevant search results for the search terms entered (out of the trillions of pages in the Google index).
“Google uses highly sophisticated algorithms to decide what content to show and in what order. But we’ll talk about all this exciting stuff later.
When people need to find information, they type or say words related to what they are looking for.
These are called keywords, and we will discuss them in the content optimization section of this guide.
But keeping your website in Google is not just about using the most competitive keywords; it’s also about the quality of the information.
According to Google’s own search quality indices, when indexing the main content of each page, it checks factors such as:
We will look at this last one (E-A-T) in more detail in a moment, as it has become imperative.
For now, know that all the above factors go into Google’s algorithm and help determine SEO rankings.
Based on the above ranking guidelines, Google will show searchers the most relevant and highest quality results related to their search. The most relevant are listed first, with the rest ranked in order.
One of the purposes of SEO ranking factors is to tell Google which pages on your site are relevant to specific search queries so that people will click on links and visit your site.
Before we look at two different types of search engine optimization, let’s take a closer look at the concepts of expertise, authority, and trust.
Google published a “medical update” highlighting expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) are essential ranking factors.
Ensure that users receive the highest quality content and the correct information. And this is very important to understand.
“Google has realized that most users use their platform for almost everything, so providing incorrect results can worsen users’ lives.
Websites that can be life-threatening are subject to the “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) policy.
Think of medical, financial planning, or other websites that can change someone’s happiness, health, or wealth.
When someone searches on Google for information that could have real consequences, Google wants to make sure it provides the most accurate information to its users.
In part, this means assessing the page’s content and the author’s reputation.
So Google doesn’t just look at what’s written on a website; it tries to understand who’s writing it. It is particularly true for YMYL sites.
Qualifications: does the content writer have the necessary skills and experience in their field?
Credibility: Does the content writer present the subject matter of the content fairly and impartially?
But what is Google’s exact formula for assessing E-A-T? This is a tricky point.
No one outside Google knows.
We know they have a large human search team to ensure E-A-T is measured as accurately as possible. Google assesses E-A-T in three stages:
It is not yet a perfect system. But it is surprisingly accurate in assessing a website’s experience, authority, and trustworthiness.
Now, some SEO practitioners underestimate the importance of E-A-T as a ranking factor. It is difficult to argue with them because no one understands Google’s complex ranking algorithm.
However, some credible people have documented a strong correlation between E-A-T and ranking.
“There are several websites that we believe have been negatively affected by Google’s quality improvements because they lack E-A-T. We have also been comfortable helping businesses improve their Google E-A-T, increasing visitor traffic“.
OK, what does all this mean for you, and how can you increase your E-A-T?
Here are some valuable tips:
All these techniques help people to increase their E-A-T and reach higher positions. And a lot of it has to do with applying best practices in online reputation management.
However, it’s clear that reaching the number one position is never guaranteed, and search engine rankings are constantly changing as SEO trends are constantly changing.
However, we can now better understand some of the SEO terms often used in the marketing world.
When discussing SEO ranking factors, you often hear “on-page SEO” and “off-page SEO.”
On-page SEO refers to site factors that can be optimized, such as core code and content.
Off-page SEO refers to activities that affect a site’s credibility and authority by generating relevant inbound links and social signals.
Both types are among the most critical SEO ranking factors.
But before we get into the top 10 ranking factors, let’s ensure we’re all on the same page when it approaches tracking and monitoring rankings.
Before improving your SEO position, you need to know the starting point.
There are several ways to find out. First, you can do a Google search using terms you think your customers will use. Use an incognito or private browsing window so that Google’s personalization does not distort results.
However, this is impractical for more significant sites with hundreds of pages, so you may need a helper tool.
A secure & accessible website, unsurprisingly, the first of the SEO ranking factors concerns having the correct URL. Specifically, a URL that Google robots can easily access and crawl to.
In other words, Google needs to visit the URL and view the page’s content to understand what the page is about.
To help the robots, they need to do this:
Using a WordPress site, you can create a sitemap using All in One SEO. Any other way, you can use an online sitemap generator.
Page speed has been one of the most crucial SEO ranking factors for years. “Google-like to improve the user experience online, and fast-loading web pages help them do that.
Use Google’s mobile testing tool to see how your website looks.
If you use WordPress, check out these WPBeginner tips to speed up your WordPress website.
But the better idea is to use Google Search Console (if you don’t already).
There’s a whole section here dedicated to informing you about your site’s performance, including speed.
If you want a more in-depth analysis, read this guide on using Google Search Console to improve your SEO.
When it comes to mobile devices, mobile-friendliness is another essential SEO ranking factor. More people are using mobile devices instead of desktop computers, which is one of the reasons for the change in Google search result rankings.
Google now has a mobile-first index, which means it collects results from websites optimized for mobile devices rather than websites designed for desktop computers.
If your site is not improved for mobile devices, you risk ranking unreasonably low.
Countless SEO ranking factors we’ll look at in this article will help you build a foundation for good search engine rankings, but you also need to take care of the user experience when people meet on your site.
You should pay attention to:
For more tips on designing for mobile devices to improve your Google search rankings, see our guide to improving your mobile conversion rate.
If you have the team, time, and energy, you can explore Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
The advantage is that pages load almost instantly from mobile devices, and Google also reportedly ranks pages created with AMP better than others.
The disadvantage is that you must create a different website version according to AMP guidelines. Then you have to maintain everything. As you can expect, this can be a time-consuming project.
However, whether you try Google AMP or not, you still need to ensure that your website is 100% optimized for mobile devices.
Did you know that almost 60% of the websites in the top ten Google searches are three years old or older?
In some cases, the domain name matters. While Google has penalized the proper domains (those with a keyword in the URL), this penalty is usually assigned to spam sites with poor content.
Moz’s research shows that exact match domains, considered relevant, valuable, and high-quality, may rank better. However, if you already have a settled website, you don’t need to search for an exact match domain for your business.
The best way to choose a domain? Concentrate on a URL that reflects your business and optimize it as much as possible!
Regarding search engine ranking factors, authority matters; as you can see, it’s usually a combination of great content (see the following tip) and off-page SEO signals such as inbound links and social sharing.
You can use Open Site Explorer to check the authority of a domain or page. Enter your URL in the site search box, and you will get a report showing the domain authority, page authority, and existing and new links.
Let’s now look at what content optimization means in terms of SEO optimization.
As we mentioned in the keyword search guide, Google’s search algorithm is based on keywords. These are the words and phrases that seekers use when looking for information, and they are also words and phrases that define the topics your website addresses.
Ideally, they overlap. That’s why it’s essential to use keywords in your content.
One of the negative SEO ranking factors to watch out for is duplicate content. Fresh, original content is always best for SEO optimization. You can use canonical URLs to tell Google which one is the most authoritative if you have similar content.
LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords are terms and phrases similar or related to a web page’s target keyword.
Primary click-through rates and high bounce rates indicate to Google that your content is irrelevant to the user’s search intent.
The keywords they use will change at will:
Well-optimized business websites will have content for all of these search types.
So how do you make sure the keyword matches the user’s intent?
Open a Google search in a private browser and enter the keyword. See the ranking results and decide if your content is relevant to them. If it is not, start the keyword search again. If it is, take the opportunity to find out why certain pages rank.
Google wants content to be high quality and a little longer. While you should never write more words to stretch the length, if the topic requires depth, give it depth.
Studies show that more than 2,000 words of content rank ten places higher in Google’s search engine rankings.
However, the general rule is that content should be around 2,000 words or more if you want to be competitive on the SERPs.
Longer content also attracts more links and shares, two other necessary ranking signals we’ll discuss in a moment.
SEO ranking factors: reply boxes or “zero position.”
Google is increasingly providing answers via answer boxes, another aspect of optimizing for better search engine rankings. It is what an answer box looks like:
In our experience, optimizing answer boxes means:
However, there is a downside to the desirable “zero position”:
It sometimes prevents people from going to your site because people directly answer their questions; they may have no reason to continue reading the content, and 100,000 people may see your position in the answer box, but only 10,000 clicks on the article.
But let’s be honest: It’s good to get that zero position because it means your content is ranking high by Google (which is always commendable), you’re getting much higher brand recognition, and you’re getting more traffic than you would have.
And if you fail to take that position, someone else will.
Studies show that by 2021, video content will account for as much as 80% of internet traffic.
Our review of video marketing statistics shows that:
In General?
Start including video in your content strategy. Videos are read, shared, and linked to, which are a host of signals that can boost your search positions.
We mentioned earlier that proper code construction is one part of optimizing content to improve search engine rankings. It can be daunting, especially if you are more of a wordsmith than a technician.
Here are some aspects you can master, even if you’re not a programmer:
All-in-One SEO lets you set your primary keyword phrase and other keywords, and True SEO‘s page-by-page analysis shows you how optimized your pages and posts are. It also includes a functional checklist to help you make improvements.
The on-page SEO checklist also includes an intelligent metatag generator that allows you to easily define SEO headers and meta descriptions with dynamic fields such as current year, month, custom fields, author information, and more.
Other robust All-in-One SEO characteristics include schema tagging, smart XML sitemaps, robots txt editor, SEO health check, and more.
“Google has been using artificial intelligence for some time to better position websites. It calls this signal “RankBrain.” It includes other signals that affect search engine ranking. These include:
If people come to your website, don’t like it, and leave, Google thinks it doesn’t meet their needs. If enough people do this, your website can be more challenging to rank higher in search results.
This indicates that your content doesn’t match the searcher’s intent.
You need to go back and target a more effective keyword.
However, when people click and stay on your website, Google is convinced that your content is relevant to their search.
So by optimizing your titles, descriptions, and content to get clicks and provide value, on the other hand, you can boost your search engine ranking.
As we mentioned at the beginning, the web is based on links. So links are naturally an important SEO signal.
There are three types of links:
“Google service inbound links as one way to determine how authoritative and relevant your content is.”
Ideally, an authoritative site will include a relevant link to your site in its content. Therefore, if the Content Marketing Institute includes a link to your content marketing source, it will be valued more highly than a random person’s link from a low-quality website.
You may have heard that inbound links are called “backlinks.” Your goal is to get as many authoritative sites referring to you as possible, and this also means that you want to have very few inbound links from low-quality domains.
At the same time, you like to show that you are creating quality content for your visitors. Includes using outbound links and providing links to relevant and authoritative websites in your field.
Does this mean you should provide many outbound links to increase your authority? Not.
When researching, you should only take links from trusted sources with high domain authority.
You should probably do this in users’ interest to ensure maximum value.
Finally, you can help link pages to Google and visitors by linking to your content, composing each page more beneficial. If you have an authoritative page and link to another page on your site, it helps visitors find the other page and provides some authority.
It helps the other page to increase its ranking in the search engines.
When creating new content, make sure you create a strong network of internal links so that your pages can support each other.
Remember also what we said at the beginning of this chapter:
All three types of links are related to descriptive anchor text. When you add a link to a content text, that text should describe where the link is going!
Meanwhile, people share your content on social networks, and it’s another sign that it’s valuable. An SEO study of 23 million shares showed a clear correlation between social sharing and search engine rankings.
Officially, Google states that social sharing is not a direct ranking factor, and links from Twitter or Facebook have not counted the same way as links from other authority sites.
However, it is undeniable that the pages that rank highest in Google search tend to have many shares. Although this is probably due to several related factors:
For this reason, more social shares indirectly help your search engine rankings.
Not only do you have to participate in social media yourself, but you also have to make it easy to share your content with these social signals. For some great tips on doing this, check out our guide to guest blogging and increasing your email list using social media.
This last tip is essential for companies that focus on specific local areas. The presence or absence of company information is one of the most critical factors in Local SEO rankings.
Therefore, it is crucial to take care of areas such as:
That’s it! Now you know what factors are essential for SEO ranking. You can find more applicable information in our other SEO guides:
It’s also worth looking at these SEO stats to help you increase traffic to your site. But let’s end with a question that troubles every SEO beginner.
That’s the real purpose of SEO. Is the goal to create content that Google can easily read and rank, or is the goal to create content that users like?
Unfortunately, the answer is much less dramatic than you might like: it’s both.
Asking which side is more important is like asking which side of the scissors is sharper. The two parts of SEO optimization have to be perfectly aligned to get a good ranking. However
User experience (UX) should never be sacrificed to please Google. It will only annoy your audience, which ironically will lead to Google penalizing you!
It would help if you also remembered that while ranking on Google can help your business get to the next level, Google will never be your paying customer, and your readers might. So if you want the best SEO advice, here it is:
Create inspiring content that users will love. Then, with an equivalent amount of energy, optimize that content to help Google understand why your audience loves it so much.
The billion-dollar SEO industry is based on this principle.
Finally, no matter how great your SEO optimization is, it’s certainly not the only factor you should consider.
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