Search Engine Ranking Factors (also referred to as SEO ranking factors) are probably the most important thing to know when you are creating a web site. These are the rules that determine how popular your website will be on the internet–and how much high it would go in search results. There are more than 200 factors that contribute to this ranking scheme.
Here, I’m going to highlight just a few of them which I consider to be of utmost important. Keep in mind that this list barely scratches the surface and there are many more factors on which this ranking scheme is dependent. Also, a very comprehensive report by Bruce Clay, who is one of the oldest, largest, and most trusted search firms in the world, compiled a very comprehensive report entitled “ The SEO Factors and Trends Report for 2011”, which I found out to be very detailed and covering almost all the aspects of SEO Ranking Factors. I’m including a few points from the report as well, which, do not cover up everything, yet will give you an outline of what are the key search engine ranking factors that you should keep in mind.
1. Having original content on your website is the most important aspect probably. Fake or copied or “Thin” content is the main reason that your webpage would get degraded and probably would get a law suit filed on you. If you have fake content on your website, remove it immediately.
2. Remove the number of ads on your webpage, especially from the top of your webpage. Such web pages, with heavy advertisements on top of their page, are being hit hard by Google. It would appear that they have made it their mission to remove all such content from the web that focuses more on promotion rather than providing actual useful information.
3. It would appear that many search engines are trying to gauge the relative influence of Facebook and Twitter users, and as the report puts it: “These changes could lead to likes becoming as important as links in the algorithms.” Try to adapt to this new system of social media influence and get your popularity graph up on social media websites, where the crowd is in far bigger ratio than any other place on the web.
4. Mobile searching is rapidly gripping the market especially since the year 2010. Google Instant, a new production of Google, was released for iPhones and Android based mobile systems. Seeing the importance of mobile users in the internet market, Google immediately countered the, would be problem, by releasing a solution. Try following in their footsteps and keeping the mobile phone users in mind as well. There were others factors too that effected mobile searches as well, like the increasing accuracy and sophistication of Google Goggles.
5. Site speed plays a major role in the SEO Ranking Factors. Since 2010, Google has officially started making the speed of a website, an important ranking factor. Make sure to keep your website optimized to run at maximum efficiency. Videos on your website can definitely slow down your website’s performance so try to keep your videos to a minimum and use them wherever really necessary.
Well, this is just a scratch of all those things that Google considers important for your website. I have included only few of those points which I consider important enough to be mentioned here. If you want your website to be ranked high, I would definitely recommend that you give all the SEO Ranking Factors a thorough read.