Digital marketing is becoming more competitive as more and more brands encroach into the online market space. The market dynamics keep changing, and so do SEO ethics. Although the fundamental principles of SEO remain the same, some techniques and practices often need to be revised and updated over time. Here are some of the essential SEO ranking factors today.
1) Linking
The entire web is built on links, so naturally, your website should be well-linked both internally and externally. Have inbound and outbound links from and to relevant authoritative websites. Also, interlink pages and resources internally to help users and search bots navigate within your site. Keep monitoring your links to ensure that they are not broken or spammy – this hurts ranking.
2) Mobile-friendliness
A majority of internet users access and engage with the web through mobile devices. Search engines, mostly Google, have taken drastic measures to promote a high level of user experience on mobile platforms. Google recently introduced the Mobile-First Indexing algorithm that prioritises indexing and boosting mobile pages over desktop pages.
Web developers have come up with responsive design, adaptive design, and dedicated mobile pages to ensure web visibility and functionality on mobile.
3) Page performance and load speed
Web performance is a crucial ranking factor that affects user experience. Ideally, a page should not take longer than three seconds to load its contents and activate elemental functionality. Page performance also means unhindered resource availability and responsive features. Websites with poor performance are at risk of being penalised.
4) User experience
When it comes to SERP ranking, user experience is measured in dwell time, bounce rate and click-through rate (CTR). Dwell time is the average amount of time visitors spend on your site. A high bounce rate means that visitors are leaving the site shortly after viewing only one page. CTR is the ratio of the total number of impressions to clicks or visits. Search engines use these metrics to determine a site’s relevant to its users.
5) Domain authority
Google describes domain authority as a website’s reputation as a thought leader. In other words, domain authority is the relevance of a domain to search queries against other competing domains. High domain authority boosts content visibility on SERP.
Domain authority depends on several factors, including brand credibility, quality of content, trust, link quality, and even domain age. It takes a combination of several SEO practices and time to build industrial and web dominance.
Conclusion
It’s essential to keep an eye on changes in search engine marketing. Some of the SEO tactics used today may not work as well tomorrow. The important thing is to keep adjusting to any changes to remain afloat in this competitive marketplace. Get in touch with us to learn more about E-commerce websites and how to boost sales through SEO.
