Once you set GSC up, you can see the pages Google crawled and indexed, the uncrawled and unindexed pages and possibly the reasons of them. The best way to ensure that users can find information is to create a simple to use navigation. As long as your navigation is organized, users won’t have a problem finding the information they need. When someone arrives on your site, they should know how to find the information they want. If they can’t find it easily, they will leave your site and pick your competition. This is the rate in which people click on the link to your website compared to the number of people who had the chance to click on your result.
If you’re running a WordPress site, you can set up a sitemap via All in One SEO. However, this is impractical for larger sites with hundreds of pages, so you’ll likely want an SEO tool to help you out. Before improving your SEO ranking, you’ll need to know your starting point. Once your page lands on the SERP, you have to rely on your page titles and meta descriptions to get searchers to click your link and visit your site. Google has various deeply complex algorithms to decide which content gets displayed and in which order. Explore the largest, fastest, and freshest backlink management tool.
Google started to highlight dates in search results, especially for searches where dates matter. Google looks at how often you are publishing new content on your website and if you are updating old content. They use this metric to determine if your website is still alive and give a lot of credit to sites that frequently publish articles. Many studies have proved that the longer your content is, the better it will rank in Google. To determine the quality and relevancy of a website, Google uses more than 200 metrics. Read all about these and other off-page SEO factors in our article about off-page SEO.
#1 – Number Of Links
Today, your content will rank only if it offers what exactly the user has in mind. Matching user intent is about aligning your content with the specific needs and desires of your audience at the moment they perform a search. In an era where misinformation can spread rapidly, E-A-T is Google’s way of ensuring that users receive content that is not only informative but also reliable and created by credible sources.
#9 – Autogenerated / AI Content
A robots.txt file provides a pathway for Google bots and tells them how to crawl and index your website. It identifies which pages search engine spiders should crawl and which they should avoid. This is why you need to create amazing content that’s focused on your industry or main subject. And try to focus your website and blog content on one major topic. For more on search intent, check out How to Master SEO Search Intent to Improve Your Rankings.
In fact, ensuring the “completeness” of your Google My Business listing has become even more important this year. In addition to the session duration, the end of a session indicates when the user leaves YouTube. If users quickly jump off the video after watching it, the YouTube algorithm will take a negative view and this will have also a negative effect on YouTube SEO. The session duration shows how long users stay on YouTube after watching a video.
- There is also a Yoast SEO app for Shopify that comes with a lot of the same features, but is more focused on SEO for online stores.
- If your business targets local audiences, optimizing these elements boosts visibility in local search results.
- These links show the crawl bots a content trail to follow, allowing more pages to rank and your overall website to perform better.
- You want to capture as much of that long tail as possible, while doing the same amount of work.Think of it as the difference between fishing with a spear, versus fishing with a net.
- I once helped a software company move from position 11 to position 3 for an important transactional keyword.
This is because Google has determined that this page is the most relevant based on its ranking factors. High-ranking pages in search engine results will always receive more clicks, making their search engine ranking a vital element for online success. Most Google Maps searches happen on mobile, so a slow or poorly designed website can drive potential customers away before they even step foot in your business. Google also prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in search rankings, making mobile optimization essential for local SEO. Using local keywords strategically improves your relevance, increases visibility in search results, and helps customers find you when they’re searching for businesses in your area.
Therefore, new, relevant keywords are used for current analyses, such as “Samsung Galaxy S5” or “iPhone 6”, which did not exist previously. SEO is free, but it requires time and effort to implement effectively. Paid tools and services, such as keyword research tools, analytics platforms, and professional consulting, can also assist with SEO. Also, research from Ziff Davis shows LLMs like Open AI prefer content from authoritative websites. Hence, optimizing for SEO increases your chances of BHS Links appearing in generative search features like AI overviews, ChatGPT, and Claude AI.
On the last note, it’s typically ideal to link internally to one of your own pages if you can, but don’t be afraid to link to other websites. Remember, you want to be the last click so users don’t have to go back to Google. When users get the answer from you (even when it’s a link) you become more of an authority. In other words, make sure when people search for your keyword—and they eventually find you—you are the last result they need to click. You provide such good information, they have no need to go back and click any other result. You may not be the first result they click (although that helps too) but you’ll definitely be the last.