Published on November 6th, 2017 | by Guest

The Ranking Factors – Get to Know What is Working and What is Not

With the advancement of technology, Google continuously changes its algorithm. The objective of this constant modification is to improve search result and better search intent alignment. Due to the continuous refinement, the ranking factors are changing as well. What has been the hot pie of search engine ranking process, might not even get a buyer today. The modern-day ranking factors reflect the evolving technology and the search engine behavior.

So, the big question is – what is working today and what has been discarded to meet the change?

Any Google SEO expert will tell you that traffic and user signals are the elements which work as the predictor of the ranking factor. That is because all the top sites are using SEO techniques for on-page optimization. However, now Google wants to differentiate between these websites.

The consequence of the recent changes

Due to the recent modifications in search algorithms, a lot of old SEO ranking factors have seen their doom. The current trend that the experts have noticed leans towards the industry based approach. However, this does not mean that the experts are not exploiting the advantage of the general trends. It is just that niche based method is taking over the SEO industry with slow progression.

Factors modern websites need to consider

Page load time is one of the factors which every website is improving. Of course, this is not a groundbreaking change, yet this is important because every site opts to stay ahead of the competition. Slow loading time is a sure way to giving in to the competitive websites.

Another crucial factor is the title of the content. Like the length of the content, the title is going through a thorough modification. Earlier, keywords played a significant role in crafting an attention-grabbing title. With time, that concept and technique have taken a back seat. In 2017, keyword in the title does not attract that much of importance. This change has emerged out with Google keeping an eye on the relevance of content. The trend now is creating a crisp and catchy title which shows relevance. More than 45 percent of companies have already adapted to this trend as it has demonstrated useful result.

The length of articles and blogs has changed with the growing frenzy for relevance. Now, the top ranking websites are looking for increased word count for contents. The correlation between page ranking and word count has propelled the companies to go large on the content word count targets. Any company who wishes to work with the best SEO agency need to understand the changing trend of search engine optimization which is taking place in the world.

Research-based results

The ranking factors work differently based on the requirement. The experts have noticed this and have broken the factors related to web ranking for better observation. There has been an industry-specific study which took a close look at each industry and the SEO techniques that the industry uses for better ranking.

The study has found that HTTP is a big thing for the finance industry. Finance is the one industry which survives on the users’ trust. With HTTP, the trust factor grows, and therefore, the finance industry clings to HTTP for better ranking. The same does not hold true for news website, whereas the images play a non-descriptive role for the finance industry. Therefore, you can see that ranking factor is ultimately what the users want. The relevance depends on what works for you and what does not.

When it comes to niche based websites like dating websites or recipe websites, the ranking factors work differently for different niches as well. The ranking signals that you get are relative to the type of industry you belong to.

After the data accumulation, the experts faced a significant challenge – how to put the data in practical use? They began with the obvious – the site speed!

Site speed and ranking

Site speed has played an immense role in determining the site ranking. With the improved caching, you can ensure a faster loading website. All you need to do is find out what is not caching anymore. It can work on improving your site speed better.

Some SEO experts have suggested reducing the page size by using JAVAScript on external files. However, this might not work for you if you use external resources regularly.

Importance of image optimization

Image optimization is another trick which can increase the loading speed of your website. The moment you shrink an image, the website loading time decreases a little. Noticing this, any SEO expert suggest cropping images to increase website loading speed.

SEO professionals have been working hard to protect their websites since Google has declared that HTTPS will give SEO boost to a site. HTTPS slows down website speed. That is common knowledge. However, consider this switch a worth try because of the ranking boost. The migration can be critical and result in loss of traffic.

Many trends are not working anymore. Consultation with SEO experts will decipher the trending strategies of SEO and ranking boosting techniques.

Author Bio:

Megan Cain is a Google SEO expert consultant who writes extensively on SEO and the changing trends of the search engine optimization. In this blog post, Megan writes about the ranking factors.

Tags: factors, ranking, SEM, SEO