10 SEO factors that influence your Google ranking

There are several SEO tips that can help, from keyword research and image optimisation, to SSL certificates and site loading speed. People use search engines to find what they are looking for, which means your brand needs to stand out. A fully optimised website with the right keywords placed strategically throughout your content is vital to the success of your SEO strategy. However, there are a few other things you can do to improve your search engine rankings. Your ultimate goal should be to generate more website traffic. After all, more traffic means more potential customers. 10 SEO Tips For Online Success: Search engine optimisation tips include looking at the criteria that most websites adhere to for driving traffic from organic searches. Google SEO best practices should be considered as nearly 75% of all web searches are done using Google. That means their algorithms generally dictate how to create websites and share website content. Let’s take a closer look at how your website can rank higher on Google thanks to these best SEO tips and tricks. Keywords or Phrases Keywords are search terms that online visitors are likely to enter into Google when looking for information and websites similar to yours. Finding the right keywords for your brand can be challenging but thinking outside the box and keeping things simple can really help. The primary goal is to target keywords that could generate the most number of hits while also informing Google what your content is about. Mobile-Friendly Design Websites should have a responsive design to render correctly on different devices. If you consider that, in 2018, 52% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile devices. You’d be silly not to create a mobile-friendly website. Fact is, Google announced in March 2018 that they will be using mobile-first indexing. That means they will rank websites based on their mobile versions and not the desktop. Based on that, your top priority is ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly. Not only is this great for visitors but it’s also incredibly beneficial to your website SEO. SEO Optimised Images Website loading speed is a major ranking factor and optimised images play an important role. Large image files can really slow down your website so you should optimise each image for best SEO results. Most images should be resized as there is no need to use a picture of 4000 pixels or more, especially not on a website. We understand that each web theme is different but you can experiment to find what works best for you. An image of 1500 pixels wide is ideal for most websites while blog images should be 795 pixels wide. Whichever size you choose, use an image optimiser to further decrease the file size. And don’t forget to add ALT text for each image on your website so search engines can determine what they refer to. Good Permalink Structure What have you included in your website or blog URL? It should consist of the title and, of course, primary keyword. Some URLs contain numbers or dates which are fine in some cases but using a permalink structure with the title helps improve your customer experience. Not only that, it benefits search engines as this lets them know what the content is about. Using this permalink structure also gives you another strategic spot for your keywords. Website Loading Speed As we’ve mentioned with image optimisation, site speed is a crucial part of best SEO practices. Considering there is a 90% increase in bounce rate if a website takes longer than three seconds to load, optimising your website speed is non-negotiable. The same applies to a site that doesn’t render properly on mobile devices as it affects overall customer experience. You should remove anything that is slowing down your page from large images, pop-ups, adverts, music players, flash graphics and pointless plugins. Broken Links In some cases, everyone has experienced broken links but the key is to fix them as soon as you can. Broken links not only impacts your ranking but it can also ruin your visitors’ experience and make you lose out on new business. Broken links stop web crawler spiders from indexing your website which means you will not show up in any search results. Internal and External Links A properly optimised page should contain a good number of internal and external links. Adding links on your website to blog posts and vice versa is a great way to improve your SEO. Interlinking refers to linking related posts to one another which helps website visitors find more related content on your website. It also helps search engines as they can to see which posts are related to each other. These links point to your other articles or pages on the same site (domain) while external links direct visitors to related content from other sources. While it depends on the context and content of the article, the best SEO practice suggests adding at least 5-6 internal links and 2-3 external links to each article. Quality Backlinks Quality backlinks are a major off-page SEO factor as search engines treat backlinks from trusted sites almost as an endorsement for your content. You can either earn a backlink when another website or web page links to your website or you can do the following: Ask people or big companies to include backlinks to your site Connect your Facebook page to your website Spend time guest blogging to specific industry-related websites Reach out to influencers and other bloggers Join review and directory sites XML Sitemap By including an XML Sitemap, you essentially tell search engines which of your pages are most important. Sitemaps are particularly handy for large websites containing loads of pages, posts and articles. However, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t submit an XML sitemap if you’re a new business or have a small website. It is hugely beneficial one way or another. Without a sitemap, you effectively block search engine bots from properly indexing your unlinked pages. This directly affects how your site ranks in search engine results. There are no downsides to including a sitemap and should really be considered in all instances: SSL Certificates An SSL certificate creates a secure connection between the visitor’s browser and your website host server. It is essentially a form of website security that protects your visitors’ information. This extends to data like their email address, contact details or credit card information. It can apply to various scenarios whether they sign up for a monthly newsletter or pay for something online. Final Thoughts If you want a successful online presence, apply these SEO tips to help build an organic audience. We’d also like to point out that most of the factors that affect your SEO also impact user experience. For that reason, each one is vital to search engines as they want to reward websites with a higher ranking if they deliver a quality user experience. When designing your website and online content, always keep user experience in mind and not just web crawlers. Because Google’s algorithms update continuously, investing in quality content and following good website optimisation tips should be standard practice. WSI is a digital marketing agency based in Eastbourne, generating business for clients for over 14 years. Email: info@wsileadingwebdevelopment.co.uk