Google search ranking fac
1. Backlinks Are Still A High SEO Ranking Factor
Your top 2016 Google SEO ranking factor is no other than the most important SEO ranking factor, backlinks. Off-site that is. While backlinks are enough to nearly rank the most competitive keywords in the world, there is some important elements you need to know before you get backlink happy.
Relativity is still important, look at Moz’s domain authority as a guide to who you link to and receive links from. Forget pagerank, you do know PR is dead, right? Even though Google pagerank is flat lined, it still can be used as an indicator to quality websites. But you have to evaluate it and look at the link metrics to determine if the site is high quality.
How Can A Website With 123 Referring Domains Outrank Your 256 Referring Domains?
2. CTR Is A Major Google SEO Ranking Factor
CTR, also known as click-through-rate, is also an important Google SEO ranking factor.
Your backlinks can work magic but you need relevant links, not quantities of them. I use Ahrefs.com
So you need to target websites in your niche, websites that are focusing on the same content topics as you. Use your backlink tools to determine the key link metrics that will determine who you target. Again, pagerank is dead, but you can use it to find authority sites. Look at domain authority, URL ratings, Domain ratings and Alexa rank.
SEO Expert Tip for boring niches: Try infographics, they work great for social shares and backlinks (win-win).
3. Give The Pages You Want To Rank High A Makeover And Update
In SEO, you can underestimate the value of a good looking website that is user friendly. A lot of so-called SEOs and webmasters take “fresh content” the wrong way. While you think you may need to publish new content daily, that’s not the fresh content you want. Rather, you need to revamp the content you already have published.
SEO Expert Tip on revamping content: ALWAYS map out your content. Nothing worse than having to go through hundreds of articles, cleaning them up, ect. Before you write ANYTHING, get it mapped out.
Design and speed matter. Not only for SEO, but for conversions, lead generation, sales and everything in between. Content can become outdated in as little as a few weeks. If you haven’t yet, go back through your best pages and make some edits.
And quit writing for SEO. Google’s system can pick up on your over-optimized SEO content. Google wants you to think about the user, not SEO. While I’m not telling you to forget using keywords, but add your metadata and links.
4. Speaking Of Speed, Boy Does It Matter
Didn’t someone one say, “speed kills?” Well, in your SEO, the same can be said. Except you want your loading times fast as possible. Less code, more content. Google really stepped this up in 2015, as well as mobile friendly needs. Designs, graphics and images are great, images are good for SEO. However, it can bite you in the ass if it’s slowing your site down.
Keep your images as progressive jpeg. Keep them in the same format size. Content management system users, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, plugins and extensions can kill your load times. The more you add, the slower you go in most cases.
You can check your webpage speed here.
5. One Page, One Main Keyword – Get It Right Now
This is something you’ll hear me preach over and over and over some more. SEO Site evaluations are often in my workflow and I don’t know how many times I get into content and see the same keywords being used in articles. You only need one URL to rank a keyword. If your content is in this nature, your own pages are likely fighting one another. I don’t know that I should list it as this, but man if I don’t see it a lot.
Here’s your strategy moving forward, one page, one main focus keyword. It works. Works great. You don’t need 20 articles targeting the same keyword. Now, you may list other secondary keywords to the topic. You want this to open up your internal linking strategies.
6. User Metrics Are Playing A Bigger Role Than Ever
Many of us saw this coming with Google’s algorithm changes in 2015. User metrics and user engagement is becoming a main stream SEO ranking factor and look for it to grow in 2016. Your content is everything. The topics you cover, the personality in your writing, the average time users spend on a page, genuine comments, social shares, all of these can influence the keyword rankings on any given page.
Point back to writing great content, the type of content that gets people to talk, share, interact and engage. Political topics are always great, if you have a political site, news site, government blog. Religion is another. Somehow, someway, your content has to make it happen if you want to rank first page for your keywords.
7. Since Content Is King And We’re Already Talking About it
I can’t write about SEO ranking factors without mentioning content. On-site SEO ranking factors, your content is the most important. Let me put this out there “like it is,” your content needs to be great. Too many articles are being published every day for mediocre content to rank or go viral. Out of everything you do in SEO, high quality content should be your main goal.
When you write high quality content, users find it useful. They become engaged. They talk about it, they share it. In return, this builds natural backlinks. The “natural cycle of SEO” begins to come full circle. Spread your wings and fly high kinda of stuff. In all seriousness, this is what you’e looking for.
Here’s how you evaluate your content. When you’re done, read it and ask yourself, “is this the best article online for the topic.” If your answer is no, “make it to be the best article online for the subject.” Period.
8. Go Make Some Bromance And Get You Some Friends
What the hell? Yeah, I about erased that. But I have a point. I’ve been doing SEO for over 9 years. I still don’t have enough online friends in my industry. Do you know how valuable friends are when you need a backlink, guest post, a web favor? Damn near priceless. We’re all shooting at the same cow, just a different black spot. Bad analogy, sure. But we all have common goals and we can help one another achieve success.
I’m always open to new business relationships, new friendships and you should be too. Don’t view everyone as the competition as I did early in my career. I didn’t have no friends back them and having an awesome resource list is a nice go-to when you need a favor.
All I’m saying, be open to it. Quit being stuck up. (LOL)
9. Keyword Domains Are Worth Their Weight In Gold
How many times have you read about keywords in domains don’t matter? What bullshit! Don’t believe that, they matter. Anytime you can add a keyword specific in your domain, you have at it. It matters, always has.
Keyword specific domains are worth their weight in gold. And you can find them all the time, likely cheaper than what you think. I hit GoDaddy Auctions up all the time. And for those of you looking to achieve long-lasting first page rankings (everybody), finding a keyword specific domain with some age is like winning the lottery.
Don’t redirect it though, build it up. Give it some authority and grow it. It has more value to your network this way. If you ask, “well Ricky, that will get you in trouble.” Tell it to WebMD whom at least has a few hundred of these. Literally.
10. Traffic Is Becoming A More Important Google SEO Ranking Factor