Search engine ranking is very important to the success of any blog or eCommerce store, and logically so: if a website does not show up within the first few results of Google when relevant terms are searched, there is little chance the page will be visited.
Internet users look for their answers on the first page of Google, and anything past the first page is often overlooked – after all, if these stores or website were reliable or of high quality, they would show in the top ten results, right?
Many users believe that they can only trust content on the first page of Google, making it important that marketers and bloggers do all they can to improve their search engine ranking. That being said, there is no black and white way to succeed and search engine optimization, and there are many misconceptions about the topic.
According to Backlinko, backlinks are one of the most important factors in determining a page’s Google ranking factor. When a page has been linked to by a number of other pages, they are more likely to show up high on Google’s list of results.
While backlinks are important, they should come from a number of different domains, as a number of backlinks from a single domain will not have the same effect as a number of backlinks from different domains.
Backlinks are important, but many other factors play a significant role in defining a website’s search engine ranking. According to Backlinko, the most important factors include:
- Link Authority (as measured by Ahrefs)
- Longer content (between 1,500 and 2,000 words)
- Title tag keyword optimization
- Page loading speed (faster page result in better a better ranking)
- Exact match anchor text
- Low bounce rate
While the factors on this list have been shown to affect a page’s Google Ranking, the content of the page also plays a significant role.
Thanks to the creation of the Hummingbird Algorithm, Google no longer ranks pages based solely on the inclusion of keywords, but based on the topic of the page itself. The algorithm takes many factors into account in order to determine which results are most relevant.
When this content is included in a lengthy article, it will be far more likely to rank highly on Google’s search results, as compared to short content. Content should range between 1,500-2,000 words in order to show up in Google’s top ten results. Essentially, content that is on-topic and in-depth will have a better chance at ranking highly than content that does not follow these guidelines.
One misconception of search engine ranking optimization is that HTTPS results in a better ranking. While there is a correlation between HTTPS and high rankings, including HTTPS does not cause higher rankings.
In addition, a page’s Schema markup has very little to do with YouTube’s search engine rankings, which many marketers find shocking. Using structured data is fine, but it will have very little
Finally, the length of a page’s URL plays a role in its ranking. For example, a page with a shorter URL will rank higher than one with a long URL, which should be taken into consideration when looking to optimize search engine rankings.
http://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking
