Search engines work by using algorithms to evaluate websites by search query and relevance. This evaluation structures pages in an index, which ultimately results in displaying the best possible ranking of the results displayed.
Google has grown increasingly more sophisticated with its ranking algorithm, and has added a host of new variables that affect how your site ranks in an individual’s Google search results page.
Here are the variables
- Search History: A user’s search results page can vary depending on what websites they’ve visited in the past
- Site Architecture: links from other websites are a very important signal for Google’s ranking algorithm
- Breadcrumbs: Breadcrumb navigation is a technique that not only works to improve the user experience, but is also appealing to search engines—and can even help boost your organic ranking
- Loading Time: A poor performing site results in a poor user experience, and sites with poor user experiences deserve less promotion in a search result
- Social Media: If a user’s friends +1ed a page. Google gives preferences to endorsement of friends
Four Ways to improve your Site’s Ranking (SEO)
Meta tags
The descriptions entered into meta tags are not worth a lot in most search engine algorithms, but the meta text is still often displayed under the page title in the search engine results. Write your meta tags to include some keywords without being hard-to-read. Also make sure the text is informative, engaging, and representative of the content on your page, to encourage people to click and stay.
Alt text
When adding pictures to your blog post, try to find original pictures that are meaningful, not just pretty. Then add very descriptive alt text to the pictures, as well as descriptive file names. This can help your pictures be ranked higher in image searches, where it is often easier to rank for a high-quality term.
Alt text is also useful outside of search engines, as people with screen readers or other specialty devices cannot view or access the images, but can find the text.
Subheadings
Search engines give more weight to terms appearing in header tags within your text. Make sure your subheadings are literal and descriptive, and format them using Header 1, 2, and 3 tags instead of just making them bold. Remember that you can use CSS to format header tags to look however you want, but they still communicate importance to search engines no matter how they look.
Links
Don’t forget to include a few high-quality links in your body text. You can link to relevant posts internally, and you can also link to other great sites. It’s good to affiliate yourself with similar sites by linking to them.
