What Search Engines Look for When Ranking Your Site

Since the beginning of mainstream use of the internet, search engine optimization has evolved significantly as search engines continued to improve and tweak how they rank websites. For example, in the early 2000’s, by having the page’s name as part of the URL you could get a higher rank in search results.

As the Internet expanded and everyone started to flood the internet, it has become more difficult getting reliable results. Along the years, there have also been various techniques used to trick search engines into ranking an irrelevant website as well. However search engines, like Google, have been fighting this in order to deliver the most relevant search results to its users.

While this is an improvement for users, in some way it is becoming a complex topic to deal with for website owners. By understanding what Google looks for, you can improve your SEO. Here is basic list of what Google looks at to rank your site.

Track Record Online

Newer sites have always had a difficult time with SEO. Since there are so many websites and users usually look only at the first page of results, Google favors websites with a longer and positive track record online.

Keywords

The main piece of information search engines want to understand when scanning your website is what it’s about. The most relevant method is to search for key words on your website and categorize it accordingly. If your website is at the top of relevancy for a specific keyword, it will be displayed in search results by Google.

That means it’s important for you to know what words and phrases your audience uses in their search queries. This is usually done with a thorough keyword research.

Outgoing Links

Search engines also look for characteristics that indicate a website is authentic and relevant in its domain or industry. Having links to other sites and within your site to other pages is one of these characteristics that can influence the search rankings.

Incoming Links

Turning it around, incoming links are also taken into consideration by search engines. This is partially a signal for relevancy and reputation of your website within the industry. Search engines will analyse your website by the surrounding environment you keep, so your goal is to have high quality outgoing and incoming links.

Responsive Web Design

Nowadays most of internet traffic goes through mobile devices, therefore having a responsive website design is mandatory for every business online. It’s one of the minimum requirements to have a chance at getting ranked with search engines.