Search Engine Optimization is the most important way to drive organic traffic to your website.
However, getting your site to the first page of Google is not easy, and it takes time and commitment to see the results.
You should be aware of what search engines are looking for in a website to get the best results.
6 SEO ranking criteria you need to know
- Site Security
- Mobile-Friendliness
- Page Speed
- Quality Content
- Technical SEO
- Backlinks
Site Security:
Search engines want their users to visit trustworthy sites. In 2014 Google stated that HTTPS would be a critical ranking factor. That means it is essential for your website to have an SSL certificate.
Secure sites have the “HTTPS” encryption URL(i.e., https://yoursite.com) and have an SSL certificate activated.
If your website doesn’t have the “HTTPS” in the URL, you will need to buy an SSL certificate.
All sites under my hosting & maintenance plans come with an SSL certificate.
Mobile-Friendliness:
Why does your website have to be mobile-friendly? More than 50% of today’s website traffic is happening on mobile devices.
So if your site is not mobile-friendly, the overall user experience will be poor, and search engines factor that in when ranking your site.
Take a mobile-friendly test from Google to check your website’s mobile-friendliness.
All sites designed by Creative Media Box are optimized for mobile.
Page Speed:
You can also improve the user experience by minimizing the loading time of your website. It’s simple; users don’t want to browse a website that takes too long to load.
If you want to check the page speed of your site, try the page speed checker.
Factors that increase the page speed of your website;
- Optimize CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
- Reduce redirects
- Optimize images
- Improve the responsiveness of servers
- Enable compression to reduce the size
Quality Content:
Yes, quality content is the best way to increase user engagement and drive organic traffic.
Why? Because search engines focus on giving the users what they want. If your site has well-researched and in-depth content that helps solve users’ problems, the more likely your website will get ranked in the top 10 search results.
Depending on what type of business you have, you may consider adding a blog to your site where you can take the time to answer some of the questions your customers have.
When writing your site content, factor in what potential customers are looking for and include it in your site. Make sure it is clear and engaging.
Technical SEO:
Technical SEO involves the coding part of your website and is an often overlooked factor to your SEO ranking criteria.
Some of the vital on-page factors that significantly impact the rankings:
- keywords in the title and meta description.
- meta descriptions with keywords.
- schema markup to help find the type of content you’re creating.
- alt tags for images with the keywords.
- internal links to establish a hierarchy for your website.
All these factors are used during the design phase of every Creative Media Box site.
Backlinks:
What’s a backlink?
Backlinks are the number of quality links directed to your site from other websites. Backlinks are an essential factor in telling the search engines that your site is credible.
Following are some of the link building strategies to build backlinks for your site;
- guest posting on blogs
- links from business listings
- business network groups
- business reviews or recommendations
Remember, SEO ranking criteria will constantly change as search engines evolve, and it’s vital to reevaluate your site from time to time. Implementing the 6 SEO ranking criteria you need to know right now will help your SEO ranking.
My Premium and Max Hosting & Maintenance plan includes a monthly SEO report that can help you stay on top of how search engines view your site. If you’re interested, let’s start a project today!