Do you want to attract new visitors to your website by increasing your ranking and improving your Google ranking? You need to make sure the right people find you, that’s why you need to work on SEO factors.
There are so many, hundreds of them. In this article, I decided to identify 3 big families that encapsulate ranking factors that are critical to your growth and optimize your website for Google.
Page Experience
Page speed is an SEO factor you cannot overlook today. Google rewards usable and ready-to-read content. In fact, it has confirmed on several occasions that site speed affects Google rankings. However, today we no longer think in such simple and direct terms.
Among the main SEO factors, we especially mention those that allow for action on the page experience, i.e., how people use a website’s resources. The goal is to improve the UX.
This is done by increasing the loading speed of the web page but also by thinking in broader terms about usability from mobile, presence of HTTPS, no intrusive ads, and more.
In May 2020, Google announced the Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics related to speed, responsiveness and visual stability, to help site owners measure and improve user experience.
- “A good page experience does not take precedence over interesting and relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages with similar content, the page experience becomes much more important for increasing visibility in SERPs.”
SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM
Here is what Mountain View says on its blog with respect to Core Web Vitals. These are elements that merge with the other SEO ranking factors and help determine Google rankings. You can use Pagespeed Insight, Lighthouse, Search Console and lots of technique to optimize these points.
Must-read: how and when to do site redesigns
On-page SEO
On-page optimization is one of the three SEO factors you cannot do without. This path starts with good keyword research and includes all the tricks you can apply directly on the web page and code, to get a good ranking in SERPs. Here are some ideas.
URLs for SEO Ranking Factors.
The best way to choose a URL is to use keywords already chosen in the content. To separate the keywords that make up the address, the hyphen “-” and not “_” is best. You should try to reproduce in the URL the most natural way users search, while maintaining simplicity and brevity.
Choose URLs to reflect the structure of your site and create a continuous path. Try not to build a URL by employing more than three sub-folders, as in the example below.
Homepage: www.esempio.it/
1st level page: www.esempio.it/categoria/
2nd level page: www.esempio.it/categoria/sotto-categoria/
3rd level page: www.esempio.it/categoria/sotto-categoria/articolo/
Remember that the URL structure is also picked up by breadcrumbs, the navigation paths that allow the user to find out where they are and create new internal links followed by Google.
Tag Title and SEO ranking factors
The Tag Title is the title of the web page and is the clickable text that appears in search engines. It should be short and make the subject of the page to which it belongs immediately clear. In fact, the Tag Title is always different from resource to resource. Without forcing your hand, I recommend using keywords.
On the other hand, remember that Google is increasingly able to understand the content of the page, and its usefulness with respect to a query, regardless of the presence of the keyword. This does not mean ignoring the advice to put the most important keywords in the SEO title: let’s just say that this is not enough.
Regarding the length, the recommended one is between 40 and 60 characters; if you cannot follow this rule, it is better to stay below 65 characters. Otherwise, Google tends to cut the text.
Write good meta tag description
Among the meta tags is the description. This is a description that helps the user understand what the link he sees in the search engine is about. This allows him to get a concise picture of the content. The meta description does not affect ranking but helps increase visits.
Internal links are also SEO factors
Among the various SEO factors we also find the presence of hyperlinks inserted to web pages of the same domain. Use them when they are needed, not randomly. And only to provide value to the content.
Heading tags help ranking
Header or Heading tags play a similar role to text styles in Word. They are important because they enhance the user’s reading experience and give different weight to different parts of the content. If done without forcing, and in a natural way, it is helpful to expand the semantic range of the text.
Importante rispettare la gerarchia degli header, e utilizzare nell’H1 la keyword più importante anche se non devi scrivere questa headline in modo speculare al tag title: puoi anche variare e creare una headline più lunga. Ricorda, però, la regola base che suggerisce di inserire un unico H1 per pagina web.
Tag Alt tra i fattori SEO necessari
L’attributo alt è un elemento del tag e serve a inserire una descrizione delle immagini presenti nella pagina. Quando l’immagine non sarà disponibile, comparirà il testo inserito come alternativo.
Quindi è importante utilizzare parole corrispondenti all’immagine e soprattutto che utilizzino concetti e parole chiave utilizzati nella pagina. Questo creerà un terreno comune che darà rilevanza alla pagina.
Sitemap, un SEO Ranking Factor
Tra i vari fattori SEO ricordiamo anche la presenza della sitemap.xml da caricare nella Search Console. Non proprio utile per i siti piccoli o monopagina, diventa fondamentale per grandi portali e blog.
Contenuti
Il contenuto influisce sul ranking e rientra tra i principali fattori SEO. So già cosa stai per dire: questo rientra nell’area on-page. Ed è vero però credo sia opportuno affrontare l’argomento web copywriting a parte. Precisely because on-page content plays a key role in SEO ranking.
This is for both copywriting and keyword research study. Search engines like useful topics for users and that is why there must be great synergy between web writer and SEO.
The content of the page must be of high caliber to have a good chance of ranking on search engines. Text quality is an SEO factor and is understood as both formal and substantive.
Formal quality
The content must be well written. Google prefers text that is understandable and readable. Therefore better to use short and simple sentences. Search engines seem to prefer longer articles (long form).
However, generalizations should be avoided: there is no ideal number of words per article. Sometimes readers want quick answers to their doubts, other times they want to go deeper. It depends on the user’s Search Intent. That is, the search intent, what the person really wants from the query on Google.
There are topics for which case studies of thousands and thousands of words are needed. In conclusion, there is no ideal length of articles. Always evaluate your target audience and try to understand their needs.
Authoritativeness
Content is valuable when it entertains the user and reduces page abandonment. Do not copy-paste from other sites, choose the appropriate tone of voice, study the depth of your article. If necessary, add unique videos and infographics to make it more complete and useful.
Bounce, pogo sticking and click through rate are often cited as possible SEO ranking factors: there are no certainties but certainly writing quality content means working on virtuous ranking.
With respect to SEO ranking factors, it is useful to work on the authority of the content by also paying attention to who signs the content: the user (and Google) must be able to trace a common thread between the topic addressed and the signature. Especially if we are talking about sensitive topics such as money, health, and all those that fall into the delicate and complex category of YMYL topics. That is, Your Money or Your Life.
Purpose
The content on the page must have a positive purpose for the user if they want to rank well on Google. It means that the article must be centered on a clear topic and lead to what Google, in its guide dedicated to quality raters, defines as beneficial purpose. Here is a definition:
“The purpose of a page is the reason or reasons why the page was created. Every page on the Internet is created for a purpose, or for multiple purposes. Most pages are created to be helpful for people, thus having a beneficial purpose. Some pages are created merely to make money, with little or no effort to help people. Some pages are even created to harm users. The first step in understanding a page is figuring out its purpose.”
GENERAL GUIDELINE, LAST UPDATED: JULY 2022.
The purpose of a page, Google reminds us, is why the page was created. Most pages are created to be useful to people and have a charitable purpose. Some pages are created to make money, with little or no effort to help people. Your goal?
Identify your niche and dedicate yourself to that. If you claim to talk about everything, you’ll end up coming up with superficial content and won’t capture anyone’s interest. Then figure out how to make your audience happy.