Over the years and after countless algorithm updates, how google indexes, views and processes pages on the web and how it decides on the factors to rank them has changed substantially, however our need to have our website ranked and the importance of google organic search traffic is even more substantial for the success of a business online. Doesn’t really matter if you are a small dental clinic or a large corporation with hundreds of employees and millions in marketing budget, if you aren’t found on searches, your website wont deliver !!
Here is a carefully curated list of things that we believe matters the most when it comes to cracking the search code in 2023 :
1.UNIQUE & RELEVANT CONTENT
The idea behind search engines is to find answers for search queries made on the platform. If you put in the effort to curate and create content for your website that answers specific queries your clients might have, you will get ranked against those searches. However its very easy these days to differentiate plagiarized or AI created content which could penalize the page and stop it from being ranked.
2.BACKLINKS
Backlinks are simply links on other websites that point to yours. It has always been one of the top 3 ranking factors of google. What backlink does is gives your website a vote of confidence and hence increasing your authority in google’s index. The site from where the links generates also matters, so exercise caution while engaging in link sharing programs and avoid links on penalized and low PR sites.
3. PAGE LOAD SPEED
How your website performs and how quickly your page loads specially in mobile devices is an extremely potent ranking factor. If you are not sure how your website fares, use Page Speed Insights and follow the suggestions to enhance your page load speeds. Here are a few things you could check to make sure your website is loading properly :
- unwanted plugins and themes
- videos files
- large PNG image files
- easy to use apps
4.RESPONSIVE WEBSITE
Your website needs to be cross device compatible and has to perform properly specially on small screens like mobile phones. When opened up on a mobile phone, the data served should be carefully curated to make the user experience of consuming your website content easy on such small screens. Use collapsing menus, responsive images and mobile friendly data structures to gain ranking.
5. AGE OF YOUR DOMAIN NAME
Google views domains which has been in existence for over a year to be genuine, more relevant and less spammy compared to newly registered domains. If you just had a website up, you might have to wait out before you could use this to your benefit.
6. SITE SECURITY (SSL CERTIFICATES)
Google has actively labelled websites without a SSL certificate on their web browser chrome as “non secure” and other browsers have followed suit. Its thereby no secret that google prefers websites with SSL and hence ranks them higher compared to non secured websites.
7. GOOGLE MAPS LISTING (BUSINESS PROFILE)
Getting a verified business profile on google goes a long way in proving that you are a legitimate business and goes on to prove the worthiness of your website. If you could have your customers drop in reviews on google or other sites like yelp, that can further help boost your ranking.
8. TECHNICAL SEO
Technical SEO mostly refers to a set of good practice suggestions by google to make your website more accessible. It includes the proper use of page titles, meta descriptions, headings & sub headings. It also means using proper alt tags for your media content and making sure the site is devoid of broken links and duplicate content.
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