The wheel of time has arrived in 2022, and SEO also needs to evolve with each passing day and keep pace with the times.
Google SEO Practices & Google Ranking Algorithms
All optimization work implemented on the website is aimed at moving closer to the rules of Google's top ranking algorithm. The daily optimization work is to make it closer and closer, infinitely closer. In other words, the essence of Google SEO optimization is the daily work of making a website conform to Google's top ranking rules.
What Are Google Seo Ranking Factors?
SEO ranking factors refer to the rules and algorithms of natural ranking in Google search results. Google's ranking algorithm has more than 200 (maybe more), but so many can't do it all, so we picked 8 recognized core elements.
1 – User Experience
User experience metrics primarily measure multiple dimensions of web page usability, including page load time, interactivity, and visual stability.
A client is an old brand that has been in the industry for 20 years. Their domain name is also very strong, and they are registered with their own core keywords (this means that users can easily find their website when searching), However, due to the lack of SEO optimization skills, the website ranking effect is not ideal.
Immediately after rebuilding their site with optimization criteria for core page metrics and site performance, they achieved great results, with a lot of organic traffic and two large orders.
Good core page metrics + good site performance = great user experience, and that's what Google is all about in 2022.
2 – Data Privacy
Data privacy is becoming increasingly important, and equipping websites with SSL or other data protection certificates can help improve the ranking of our content in Google search results.
Setting cookie authorization is important for Google's data collection and privacy.
We should pay attention to the aspects that Google values because Google is likely to start giving them further weight.
3 – Search Intent
A user's search intent is a specific motivation for them to enter the query.
When optimizing for keywords, we should consider the user's search intent, otherwise, we will not only fail to improve the ranking of the website, but will attract the wrong audience.
Search intent optimization is a long-term effort that will not yield significant results in the short term. However, as long as we take the time and energy to study google SERPs and ensure that we can answer user queries quickly and clearly, we can really improve our website rankings. ”
It has been suggested that user search intent is becoming a more influential ranking factor, which makes it important to match the right intent when creating an SEO strategy.
That's why for the past 7 months, I've been making massive user intent maps, which have resulted in satisfying results for me and my clients!
Therefore, it is necessary to "accurately and quickly respond to the user's search intentions, leave the user on the site, and avoid user churn."
4 – Loading Speed
Website loading speed is important for SEO because user behavior conversions mostly occur between 0 and 2 seconds.
It has been suggested that we should pay special attention to website loading speed, especially in the newly released Google policy, which has become a very key core web page indicator.
Be aware of any content that may slow down the loading speed of your website, such as videos or GIFs. The faster and more usable the website, the higher our ranking will be.
Therefore, we must speed up the loading speed of the website.
5 – Bounce Rate
When it comes to ranking algorithms for search engines, bounce rate can be one of the most misunderstood performance metrics.
A site's bounce rate shows how many people come to your site and leave immediately without any interaction.
While there are some people who list this as a bounce rate, we can see in Google Analytics that bounce rate itself isn't a ranking factor.
Google doesn't look at a page's bounce rate to determine whether it ranks high or low. This is because if we take into account all the different kinds of queries, a higher bounce rate is not always a negative signal.
For example, someone searches for "what day of the week" and gets an answer quickly and leaves quickly. Although the page has satisfied the searcher's intentions, the bounce rate will still be high.
Due to algorithm updates and the recent emergence of unpredictable situations, we should go back to the basics: more clicks, more conversions, more engagement.
When it comes to bounce rates, one factor Google considers when deciding on content quality is the searcher's behavioral patterns, which can be considered a ranking factor.
One of the patterns of behavior is long and short clicks, which is also evident in Google's patents. The patent refers to a weighting system that evaluates pages based on the length of time they click, the results of which affect the ranking of pages in the SERP.
As a result, factors like site click-through rates may reflect ranking factors more comprehensively than bounce rates.
6 – Premium Content
Because Google needs to keep its users happy, google lowers the ranking of our site if the content we put on the site is not useful to visitors.
In many algorithm updates in the past, high-quality content has been the highest ranking factor. We need to continue to post long-form, high-quality content on our site to attract users' access. A lot of marketers are still focused on backlinks, but without high-quality content, building backlinks doesn't make sense.
We still believe content is the most important ranking factor in 2022. Regularly posting high-quality new content is one of the surest ways to improve our search engine rankings.
Make sure our URLs are SEO-friendly, which allows crawlers to quickly notice our keywords when indexing the site, and makes it easier for visitors to remember our pages. In our opinion, it is very important to have good content. Once we have high-quality content, we can focus on improving other ranking factors such as mobile friendliness, page speed, core network metrics, and more.
7 – External Link Building
Backlink building is one of the hardest parts of SEO. A digital marketing expert said that if you want your website to rank well, pay attention to the quality and relevance of the links. Since some of Google's recent algorithm updates have attempted to reduce the value of unnaturally obtained links, care should be taken to avoid attracting such links.
Implementing black hat SEO tactics, such as buying backlinks, violates Official Google's policies, undermines the credibility of our site, and can result in the site being penalized or even deleted altogether.
An SEO consultant said that there are many important ranking factors that affect the ranking of a website, but links from authoritative sources are still one of the most important factors to make a website competitive.
One SEO freelancer said that websites need backlinks to increase authority, so my advice is to try to get backlinks on related topics. We can get these links by looking at words that have searched for relevant topics but don't compete with our URLs, as well as by contacting the site owner of the top 20 results in the SERP.
8 – Internal Links
We believe that internal links are just as important as external links. These links provide web crawlers with traceable content leads, allowing more pages to rank and making our site perform better.
It has been suggested that it's hard to say which of the SEO ranking factors is the most important, as SEO involves many different elements on a website.
However, if you have to choose one, I think internal linking is one of the most important ranking factors. Internal links help search engines index and understand our website, providing pages with important information.
If Google can't find our content, it doesn't matter how good our content is. Nowadays internal links even take on the responsibility of many external links, for example, to create more content around the topic and link to the main push page. That helps us move the page from 9th to 1st.
Building a large, content-led internal link network helps us move up our rankings quickly.
Having an internal link that adds not only the link to the old related page on the new article, but also the link back to the old article to the new article, will give the ranking a significant boost.
With hundreds of ranking factors to choose from, it's hard to know which ones are really important. But by focusing on these 8 important ranking factors, our standalone site will easily improve its ranking in Google search engine results, get a lot of organic traffic, and reduce customer acquisition costs.