serps-ranking

So How Exactly Does Google Calculate Your Rank in SERPs in 2015 and Onwards?

This article is meant for those SEO professionals and business owners who are confused after so many Panda and Penguin Updates that what is a Good SEO Strategy now and how exactly does Google rank websites in its search results. We did some thorough research on 100s of domains and concluded some ground breaking results that we are listing down, these points will help you understand what approach you as a business owner or a SEO Company in Dubai should take to get maximum benefits from the search giant, Google.

Domain Authority

Domain Authority has become one of the most prominent factors through which Google decides which website should be ranked higher than the others. Domain Authority is measured in a value ranging from 1 to 100. Domain Age is the primary factor that affects Domain Authority, and other smaller factors include, but not limited to number of quality backlinks to the domain, social shares and mentions of the domain, and the quality of content that is being used on the website.

Website Loading Speed

Website loading speed has become one another important factor in SEO in past few years, since Google`s main aim is to provide search users with the best user-experience, it now prefers to rank such websites higher that load fast, so the user doesn’t have to wait a lot to read the required information.

CTR in SERPs

Few months back we came across this shocking revelation that CTR of your website`s link in Google SERPs plays a critical part in making your website rank higher as well. So the focus should be to write compelling Meta descriptions for each of your pages so that users are enticed to click on your link in search results page more than the others. Consider your Meta description as Your AD Copy of Google Adwords.

Mobile Optimization

Just like Google prefers fast loading websites now, it also likes websites that are mobile ready. So both the desktop and mobile users get a great user-experience while visiting your website. Hence if your website is not mobile-ready or responsive, now is the time to start thinking about it.

Social Media Shares

This is a no-brainer now, social media shares and activity of your webs pages give Google a clear indication of how popular and relevant your website really is to the targeted audience. Consider having a social media strategy in place just to support SEO, even if you don’t want to do full-fledge social media marketing campaign for your business.

LSI Keywords in Content of Website

Keyword stuffing within your content simply doesn’t work anymore, and it will get your website penalized sooner or later. Despite of inserting your main targeted keywords again and again, you should be adding LSI keywords in your website`s content, which will not only make your page optimized but will make it more readable to your users as well.

Link Popularity (Authority Links Only)

If anyone tells you that that after Penguin and Panda update, the importance of links has diminished, don’t listen to him. Backlinks are still important, and they give Google a clear idea of which website is popular and have more authority compared to the other websites. However, the fact is Old-Fashioned Link Building strategies that relied on Blog Commenting, Forum Postings, Article Submissions, Social Bookmarking, etc. are no longer going to make you reach the top of search. Only backlinks that matter now are Authority backlinks, coming from high authority domains and from within the content. Domain Authority and Rankings of the website that is linking to your website are of utmost importance and having backlinks coming from low-quality websites with low domain authority and no social presence will actually do your website more harm than good. Keep in mind, now Authority and Quality of backlinks is far more important than the quantity of backlinks, hence even if you make 1 quality backlink for your website, it is better than building 1000s of low-quality backlinks.

Diversity in Anchor Texts

Gone are the days when you could build 100s of backlinks with the same keyword as an anchor text, and easily rank for that specific keyword. Now Google prefers to rank websites that have huge diversity in the backlinks coming to their website, which makes the links look natural. A high authority website will always have backlinks coming from various other authority websites with a huge range and variety of anchor texts.