By: Jenny Romanchuk
Publication Date: December 12, 2023
What are the factors that affect search engine ranking results?
Google uses over 200 factors to determine search results. How can you ensure that your website gains more visibility and thus higher positions in search engine results?
What is the ultimate metric that can make or break rankings? Is it domain authority, content quality, page speed, or mobile readiness?
While many SEO professionals will argue that popularity is the main factor for higher rankings, it surprisingly is not.
The Metric that Matters Most: Trustworthiness
SERP stands for “Search Engine Results Pages.” When a user types in a query, Google presents a list of websites and other resources such as videos, documents, and images that match the user’s search intent.
Based on our recent study, 43% of individuals surveyed find achieving a spot in the top ten simple, while 39% see it as difficult.
To get your site in the top ten, focus on the most important factors that affect search engine ranking results.
Factors Affecting Search Engine Ranking Results
Search engines aim to deliver the best results to users. Therefore, content quality is non-negotiable. Furthermore, following Google’s Panda and Fred updates and the helpful content algorithms, bad content can kill your chances of getting higher rankings.
Your content should answer search intent and provide practical information, covering all the questions the user may have.
In practice, this means your content should offer a clear answer to the search query and showcase relevant questions. For example, if I were to write an article about “interactive traffic examples,” I would cover the critical points people are looking for. What is it? How to create it? Several real-life examples of tools to create those interactive traffic instances.
Why these titles? Because they are what users are asking search engines and reflect the query intent. Explore the “People Also Ask” section to create great content.
Number of Backlinks
While the days of acquiring many unhealthy backlinks are over, the impact of backlinks is still undeniable.
Joint research conducted by Ahrefs and Backlinko showed that the number one result on Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than positions 2-10.
Google pays attention to popularity. Having more high-quality backlinks from reputable sites indicates that your content is well-crafted, as other sources affirm its quality.
Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is another crucial ranking element. Developed by Moz, it is a search engine ranking score that indicates your competency in a specific topic and predicts the likelihood of your site ranking in search engine results.
The score ranges between 1 and 100. The higher your domain authority, the more likely you are to rank on Google.
A study by Backlinko and Ahrefs supports this theory – the overall authority of a site’s backlinks correlates with Google rankings on the first page.
User Experience
Excellent user experience is one of the ranking factors.
Easily navigable sites that feature calls to action and intuitive designs provide a seamless browsing experience and encourage repeat visits. This leads to longer dwell times and lower bounce rates.
By analyzing these metrics, Google knows that your site contains valuable content, which boosts the site’s rankings.
Remember that the industry benchmark for average dwell time ranges between 2-4 minutes.
Page Speed
Page speed is a fundamental ranking factor.
Recent research indicates that the average page speed is 1.65 seconds on the first page of search engine results. The same reports indicate that 1 in 4 visitors will leave the site if it takes more than 4 seconds to load.
Therefore, having a fast website is not a preference but a necessity.
The Metric That Matters Most: Reliability
We conducted a survey of 405 SEO professionals who continuously track their sites and analyze rankings. We also asked them about the most important metrics that are “responsible” for rankings. The result?
To our surprise, 39% of survey participants consider reliability to be the primary determinant for achieving a high Google ranking in 2023.
Let’s discuss this metric in detail and understand why it matters.
What Is Reliability in SEO?
Reliability is one of the pillars of Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). When we say “trustworthiness,” we mean how accurate, credible, safe, and reliable the page is.
The level and extent of trust required vary based on the nature of the specific webpage.
For example, e-commerce sites should have a secure payment system, and product reviews should be honest and trustworthy.
On the other hand, informational pages about YMYL topics (Your Money or Your Life) need to be accurate to avoid any potential harm to individuals and society.
Why Does Reliability Matter?
According to Google’s quality rating guidelines:
“Trustworthiness is the most important member of the E-E-A-T family because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T regardless of how experienced, knowledgeable, and acclaimed the creators are. For example, financial scams are untrustworthy, even if the content creator is a highly qualified expert considered the right person to run the scams!”
Providing accurate and non-misleading or harmful information establishes your trustworthiness, increasing your chances of rising to the top of search engine results.
How Can Reliability Be Measured?
Reliability is measured by considering various factors. It is an ongoing assessment and relies on diverse elements such as author information, citations, backlinks, reviews, site security, content quality, user engagement, and many more.
You should analyze these factors collectively to gain a better understanding of “reliability” within the EEAT framework.
How to Improve Reliability
To enhance the reliability of your website, you can follow these four strategies:
1. Create Original and Valuable Content
One of the most effective ways to increase your reliability is to add elements of originality to your content.
This can be defined as small pieces of originality that make a piece of content unique from others and thus worthy of being shared or linked to.
For example, you can add originality by adopting a contrasting viewpoint to what others are discussing.
In the example below, all the ranked articles in the search engine results discuss tips for hiring a marketer. If you look closely at the highlighted part, the title is completely different from what others are writing. It is intriguing and encourages readers to click the link and read the article.
This is the element of originality.
2. Build Reputation Through User-Generated Content
Get positive ratings and testimonials from happy customers to enhance your online reputation and showcase your credibility.
Users trust other users, and leveraging social proof builds trust among customers. However, ensure that you only gather genuine feedback and avoid fake reviews at all costs.
3. Display Author Information to Add Credibility
Clearly display author information such as name, biography, experience, and qualifications to establish their expertise and credibility.
This is important not only for SEO purposes but also to help users identify authors as experts in the subject.
You can even include multiple authors to distinguish between the expert and the writer, as in the example below.
4. Regularly Update and Maintain Your Website
Google prioritizes fresh content. Make sure to regularly update your articles and add new materials. Keeping your content fresh indicates that you genuinely care about your users and want to provide them value and quality.
Additionally, outdated and irrelevant content can diminish your credibility and significantly harm your rankings.
Below is your step-by-step strategy for updating old content.
Prioritize pages that rank from 5 to 10, as it will be easier to move from 5-10 to the first position than from zero to first. Once you’ve identified the pages that need updating, follow this simple process: check old statistics, facts, and quotes and update them. Remove fluff text, replacing it with more paragraphs if the content is shallow. Use content optimization tools like Clearscope and SurferSEO to identify and add missing relevant keywords, discover weak spots, etc. Update examples to ensure you are current with trends in your industry. Add internal and backlinking to boost authority and give an extra push to the pages.
“SEO takes 6-12 months (or does it?). It can, but it can also be overnight for some sites. The picture captured is of a client who was relying on outdated content. Within 24 hours of the update, traffic surged. Here’s what we did. We updated the publish date and title, ensured the content still matched search intent, added content to enhance search intent, included optimized images, and referenced internal links. Updating relevant content is one of the quickest ways to improve SEO rankings.” – Bill Jewel, SEO Strategist at ContentGrowth.
4 Tips to Improve Your Rankings
“Backlinks only make up 7% of tactics for improving rankings,” said 405 SEO professionals in our survey. So here are four better tips to increase the visibility of your site in search engine results.
Tip 1: Optimize Your Page Content Around Target Keywords and LSI Keywords
Target keywords and LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are the words and phrases that Google uses to understand the context and meaning of a piece of content and improve the relevance of search results. Let’s take an example.
Consider “digital marketing” as a target keyword. In this scenario, LSI keywords would be “online advertising,” “social media marketing,” and “search engine optimization,” etc.
LSI keywords are relevant terms and synonyms that help search engines better determine the context of the content, and this signals to Google that your content covers a wide range of topics within the digital marketing field.
However, you should incorporate LSI keywords naturally and avoid keyword stuffing.
Professional advice: Use SurferSEO suggestions to write thought leadership content that appeals to both search engines and humans. This AI-powered tool provides LSI keywords to include in your articles to improve rankings.
Tip 2: Optimize Images for Better Search Engine Ranking
Images are not just for decoration. They play a crucial role in visualizing your content and attracting your visitors.
According to Semrush research, articles containing 6-7 images attract the highest number of unique page visits, backlinks, and shares.
However, simply adding images is not enough to see a high impact. You need to optimize them for search engine ranking. Follow these best practices to do so.
- Compress images to reduce file size and ensure faster loading. Tools like TinyPNG and CompressJPEG prove effective.
- Give images descriptive names that explain the image even if it is not displayed.
- Add alt text to describe the image if it is not displayed.
- Implement lazy loading to reduce initial page load times.
- Host images on your own domain instead of third-party image hosting sites to maintain control over image accessibility.
Tip 3: Leverage Visual Content to Increase Dwell Time
Visual content – images, videos, infographics – keeps users engaged for longer periods, ultimately increasing dwell time.
According to the “2023 Content Marketing Trends” report by Semrush, 33% of respondents use infographics to enhance their web article rankings.
The same study reveals that articles containing at least one video generate 70% more organic traffic compared to those without a video. Surprisingly, only 8% of all analyzed web articles contained a video.
Additionally, compelling infographics help users better understand your message. They also break up lengthy texts and make content more readable. This, in turn, encourages users to stay on the pages and explore more.
Tip 4: Optimize Your Site for Mobile
More than 50% of Google searches come from mobile devices, and mobile-friendly sites rank higher in search results.
In this mobile-first era, it is essential to equip your site for mobile devices to attract users and increase conversion rates.
However, our recent research found that only 20% of industry professionals consider mobile optimization the most effective strategy for improving rankings.
Here’s how you can optimize your site for mobile to achieve higher rankings:
- Implement a responsive design that automatically adjusts the layout and content of your site to fit different screen sizes and devices.
- Simplify the navigation menu using hamburger icons, dropdown menus, etc.
- Compress images to reduce file size and ensure faster loading. Tools like TinyPNG and CompressJPEG prove effective.
- Avoid annoying pop-ups that hinder the user experience.
- Ensure clickable elements are large enough.
- Use Google PageSpeed tools to identify areas for improvement and enhance your mobile page speed.
In turn, here’s an interesting case study that demonstrates the significant impact of mobile optimization.
Irina Maltseva, growth leader at Aura, observed that desktop traffic had been steadily declining while mobile traffic increased, particularly in the business-to-consumer sector.
Here are three things they implemented to make the most of mobile traffic:
- Make sure that the page speed on mobile devices is as high as possible. Since the attention span is shorter on mobile than on desktops, start creating shorter, more effective articles with engaging introductions that are not boring. Make calls to action more aggressive and place them at the beginning or in the middle. Many long articles may not be read to the end on mobile devices.
- Improve reliability for high rankings in search engines.
- “As an SEO specialist, you should consider mobile as your primary source of traffic. Mobile is the future. If you start building a new webpage, think about how it will look and convert on mobile. And only after optimizing for desktop” – Irina Maltsiva, Growth Lead at Aura.
Improve reliability for higher search engine rankings
Reliability is a critical factor for high rankings. No matter how great the content you provide, how fast your page loads, or how many backlinks you have, a lack of reliability can hinder your rise in search engine results.
Therefore, you should work on building reliability to achieve higher search engine rankings.
Use the strategies mentioned above to enhance your site’s reliability and increase your chances of appearing on the higher pages of search engine results.
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