3 key Google ranking signals every marketer must know in 2018
Posted on: February 5, 2018
When SEO consultants work on their marketing campaign, the target is getting at the top of the search engine’s ranking position. Some might ask; what exactly does getting at the top position means? In this post, we look at the main Google ranking signals that all marketers should know about in 2018.
Google Ranking algorithm comprises more than 200 signals. However, SEO marketing is not about knowing about everything concerning them; rather, it is about having the priorities right. In this post, we evaluate the top 3 key ranking factors that you must know in 2018.
Backlinks
The backlink is one of the strongest ranking signals for any site because they indicate its authority. The most important thing that can greatly enhance or break the backlink includes the following. One, Google turns the concept of backlink into a quantifiable signal using the link score. It does this by assessing the quality of every incoming link and the total links to your website. This means that the quality and quantity of the links are very important.
In addition to the backlinks, Google also takes extra focus on the anchor texts. Just like the page content, the backlink anchors help to tell Google what the pages are all about. Note that the backlinks should be kept diverse, natural, and unique to avoid cannibalization.
Content
In any SEO marketing effort, the content is king. However, Google is only interested in quality content that will deliver value. In particular, Google wants to know about the keyword usage. You should ensure the keywords are properly applied in the title tag and have properly crafted meta-description. Then, the content should be of significant content. Though there is no specific number of words recommended for your content, it is advisable to look at the top ranking pages and craft content of similar length.
Your content will only help the site to rank higher if it is comprehensive and engaging. Google has for years been emphasizing on user experience to ensure that all users always get what they want. Your content should, therefore, provide answers to issues that affect the target audience. You should use all the features to help clients get the answers they are looking for faster.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the basic foundation of any site. While it might not have a direct relation to page/site ranking, it supports all the other components and must be done with a lot of care.
Two things stand out when it comes to technical SEO; the page speed and mobile friendliness.
Google expects pages to load faster so that clients can get the value for their time and resources. If your pages load slowly, the bounce rate will be very high and conversion low. Pages that are culprits of poor loading speed in many cases include uncompressed resources such as images, CSS files, and scripts.
Google found that over 50% of all searches are emanating from mobile phones. This means that you cannot ignore making your site mobile friendly. They have even announced they will divide the index into mobile and desktop indices with the former the primary index. Other components of technical SEO include mending all errors and broken links.
