In the vast world of the internet, where hundreds of websites are vying for visibility, the effort to secure a digital presence has become both a science and an art. In this context, the visibility of a website in search engines plays a crucial role in ensuring its success.
Going deeper, the search engines (e.g. Google) that “guard” the web use sophisticated algorithms to filter the plethora of virtual content and present users with the most relevant and reliable results. The website ranking factors act as “compasses” that guide these algorithms, influencing the positions your web pages occupy in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
As the digital landscape evolves, so do the criteria that influence your website’s rankings. Below, we list exactly those elements that can bring your website to the forefront and drive it to success.
- HTTPS
As expected, the first of the ranking factors is related to security, as priority is now given to websites that implement a protected connection “https” rather than “http”. Therefore, you should make sure that your website uses this protocol, as it decrypts the data between your website and the user’s browser.
- Mobile friendliness
Nowadays, more and more users are conducting web searches from their mobile device. For this reason, search engines draw their results first from mobile friendly websites that automatically resize to fit the device, use large fonts and include accessible menus to make it easier to navigate the site.
- Enriched content
If you want a good search engine ranking, it’s essential to work on your page content. This should be original, structured, extensive, as well as provide sufficient information to the search engine about the website.
- Page loading speed
Almost as important as the content of the website, the speed of the website contributes significantly to SEO and search rankings. Anything from image compression to utilizing browser caching can affect the performance and speed of the website.
- Backlinks
Inbound backlinks from other websites have a huge influence on the ranking algorithm, acting as a letter of recommendation for your site. By obtaining these links, a message is sent to the search engine that your content is trustworthy, since other high-quality sites vouch for it.
Logically, websites with fewer backlinks have much less organic traffic since they are “buried” deep in the search results. So, without their existence you cannot attract traffic to your website.
- Keyword optimization
In addition to the above, keyword optimization is a very important ranking factor. As keywords are search terms that users type in to get results, it is essential that your website has the right ones.
To ensure that your content is well optimized, we advise you to include the keyword in the meta title of your website. At the same time, you can incorporate primary and secondary keywords in the meta description to make users realize that your content is worth reading. Finally, include keywords in the headings, subheadings, URL and alt text of images to give more precision to your content.
By the end of this article, however, you are likely to have come to the following question: Is the goal to create content that Google can easily read and rank, or to create content that your target audience will like?
The correct answer is…both. Keep in mind that while search engine rankings can help take your business to the next level, they are in no way your customer.
So, create quality content that people will like and then optimize it to help search engines understand why your audience is drawn to it. Remember, however, that you should always start with your user in mind.
SoftOne‘s B2B eCommerce platform, SHOPRANOS, supports the above criteria in order to improve the User Experience in your digital store. It implements mandatory secure “https” connection, has a mobile responsive design, as well as rich content. Its architecture even positively influences the performance and speed of your website, while integrating AI features, it optimizes content by automatically adding elements such as headings and keywords. Thus, it upgrades the ranking of your B2B e-shop in all popular search engines and effectively helps to increase traffic.