On Wednesday we revealed the Top 7 Ranking Factors in 2015 that would get you more visibility, increased revenue, and increased traffic. If you missed it, you can still watch the webinar here and listen to our talented team go over each and every ranking factor in great detail.
But if you need a quick rundown of what we went over, we’ve wrapped it all up in this blog post for your reading pleasure. Take a look!
1. Link Quality.
Backlinks are everything in the world of SEO. 20 years in the industry has taught us that backlinks are consistently THE most important ranking factor. While their exact usage has changed over the years, we have noticed the trends and have recognized the best way to use them in 2015.
You see, not all links in 2015 are created equal. You can’t just accumulate tons of backlinks and expect good results. What you need are links that have high trust flow that will point to your page with authority and relevancy. You need links coming in from trustworthy sources that have good content and site health.
Click here to listen to the Link Quality section.
2. Link Metrics.
What makes a link bad or good? How do you determine such a thing? We discuss how you (or an SEO professional) must manually look at your backlink profile and weed out the links that are doing your site harm. Or at the very least, the links that aren’t doing your site any favors and providing good link juice. Basically, building good link metrics for your site means you’ve got to do a little pruning.
Your outbound and inbound links should point to and from places that have authority. The New York Times, popular blogging websites – these are all examples of links you’d want to keep. Even your own website is a must!
Listen to the Link Metrics section here.
3. Site Architecture.
A site that isn’t organized well isn’t doing anyone any favors – not users, not search engines, and especially not your business. What you need to do is make sure your categories and subcategories are organized thematically.
Are your products grouped together in a way that makes sense? Are you making sure your customers don’t have to hunt around your site for the stuff they want? You need to ask yourself questions like, “what is the theme of this page?” Themes for sections and pages are great for SEO purposes and will make your site look cohesive and user-friendly.
Click here to listen to the whole section on Site Architecture.
4. Website Content.
What’s a better strategy for website content: Quality or quantity? In today’s SEO landscape, quality always wins. While it’s still important to have long-form content, and to post that content regularly, above all your content must provide value. This also means being aware of what people are searching for and incorporating LSI keywords into your content. As a result, your content will act as a strong foundation that supports all your other ranking factors.
The webinar goes into a bit more detail on how to get your content optimized to rank, but it all supports the same idea: Building quality content for your website is something you need to do.
Listen to the whole Website Content section here.
5. Meta Information.
How you present your pages on the search results is another of our top ranking factors in 2015. Creating unique titles, meta descriptions, and headers will not only reinforce your content but will also make users more likely to click on your page. Just make sure you meet the correct character count requirements!
Check out the Meta Information section here.
6. Site Health.
Having a healthy website is definitely among the top ranking factors in 2015. We discuss how page loading speed helps provide a good user experience (while also pointing out Google’s true reason behind wanting a fast site), as well as the importance of mobile-friendliness, XML sitemaps, Robots.txt, and others. Essentially, we go over an SEO checklist that outlines the things you need for a healthy site that is worthy of Google’s attention.
Learn more about our Site Health section here.
7. Social Presence.
Are you engaging with your users? Do you make sure your brand is always front and center? It isn’t enough to just “have a blog” if you aren’t using it to make conversation with customers. How your business is seen on social media is becoming one of the fastest-growing ranking factors in 2015. Are users sharing your content? Commenting on your blog posts? They should be, and if they aren’t, you need an SEO service provider to whip your social into shape. A good social presence has other SEO advantages for your business, and we go over them more in depth in the webinar.
Click here for more on our Social Presence section.
Bonus: Important SEO Tools You Should Be Using
We also shared with you the top SEO tools you need to use to stay relevant and competitive in SEO. These range from tools that help monitor your backlinks to the all-powerful Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools). While using these tools can’t replace the SEO services you’ll get from an SEO company with 20 years’ experience, they have their value.
View the SEO Tools section here.
Learn More from Our Q&A!
Be sure to check out the Q&A as well! There are some excellent questions asked by our viewers you should absolutely listen to. Not only do we go into greater clarification on our Top 7 Ranking Factors in 2015 but we also provide all-important context to those questions. Once you listen to it, you should have a good idea of what website and SEO services you need to help your business succeed.
If there’s a question you have that wasn’t asked, don’t be afraid to reach out to us. Even if it’s just an SEO definition of a term we talked about. We’ll be glad to help you in any way we can to help you stay on top of these Google ranking factors.
Left to right: Vice President of Business Development Sergio Stephano, CEO and founder Garry Grant, SEO Analyst Dalton Grant.
