What makes Google treat your website as a reputable, secure and credible source that deserves the number 1 spot? Ranking highly on Google, especially locally, isn’t just about the keyword but many other ranking factors. We have eleven top ranking factors that are set to help boost your website’s SEO, credibility and position on Google.

Secure Webpages

This means ensuring you have the padlock on the URL, most commonly known as an SSL certificate. Secure websites are reliable, credible and will keep the visitors coming back. Google will immediately downgrade any website that isn’t secure and you will categorically see your website drop off rankings by not installing an SLL. See our blog here on what an SSL is.

Mobile Friendly Site

A mobile responsive website is crucial in 2019/2020 and put simply, you’re losing sales if it isn’t ready for mobile. You will find your desktop/mobile users within your analytics and if you have mobile users then it’s imperative to make it easy on the phone. Your website designer can help make these changes to allow your website to thrive on phones.

Page Speed

Do you know how quickly your website loads? Not just in front of your eyes but according to the web and servers! If your website is taking over 3 seconds to load, then it’s worth looking into your page speed. There’s a few items that can make up the speed of your site such as size of site, layout, server/host, java script and the biggest culprit – imagery. If your images are over 1mb each then it’s time to condense to bring that page speed load time down.

Domain Authority

Websites all have their own domain authority – be it 1-100, your score is determined by a number of factors that combine to create an algorithm. This algorithm isn’t the easiest to crack but items such as your domains age, the SEO behind it, the URL and it’s relevance and back links all add up to your Domain Authority. This score then helps you rank on Google because the higher the score, the more reputable you are. A ‘good’ website will have a score in the region of 15-30, depending on industry and requirements. Websites like Facebook and the BBC have a score of 90+ due to their authority and credibility.

Technical SEO

Your Search Engine Optimisation isn’t something to be ignored or left alone. Your website should always be looked at as an active tool with many parts to it. Look at your own page optimisation, your meta descriptions, page titles, links and alt text. Then, look at how your website performs, have you submitted a site map to Google, are you ticking all of the boxes for a happy website? SEO is not just keywords.

User Experience

We’ve all been on a rubbish website – we never forget them. Make your user’s experience the best it can be, make it so easy that they’ll return time and time again. It shouldn’t be a resource they only ever need to use once. Is it mobile friendly, do you have everything they need in less than three clicks? The experience isn’t for your benefit or to look pretty, it’s for the customer.

Links

Your links and backlinks are crucial to your website’s overall authority. Look at the links that go across your website, are you linking to other services within your website – have you linked to other pages across the web? We also highly endorse sharing links to other websites that may even be unrelated to you because it shows you’re recommending other sites and not just keeping your content to yourself. All links add up. That being said, the best link you can have is a back link. Get your link on another website that has a good authority, in your industry and shares content and Google will appreciate that you’re being recommended and bump you up!

Real Business Information

Are you trying to target local with your digital marketing? Sometimes the simplest items like your address, phone number and local signals may be missing from your SEO. Make sure you optimise your Google My Business Profile to share your up to date information along with opening hours and maps. Your customer’s will return and Google will appreciate a uniform digital profile across the web.

–

So what are you going to work on? Everyone has one of these ranking factors that they need to work on to help push their website up even further! It is a science but one you can embrace and we can help with!