“So obviously there’s a little bit of overlap there with regards to… Google understanding my content better and me ranking better for the queries that I care about. Because if you write about content that you want to rank for which probably you’re doing, then being able to understand that content better does help us a little bit. The word “rote” means doing something mechanically and out of habit, without thinking about it. Take a look at the top ranked sites for most any query and it’s highly likely you won’t see sites seeding heading tags with keywords. Review individual factors include keywords in Google reviews, high numerical Google ratings, and the quantity of Google reviews with text. Research finds that 64% of agencies and 23% of local businesses spend time fighting GMB spam – meaning that those that do so have a definitive edge.

While the placement of keywords at strategic locations holds a lot of weight, it is also important to maintain the right keyword density throughout the content. Few years ago, all you needed to rank on the first page in Google, was a domain containing your main keywords. If you are running link building campaigns and building too many backlinks in a short period, Google might have a closer look at your website. For example, websites from UK should have the majority of backlinks coming from other sites located in UK. For example, websites that have 80% of their backlinks coming from directories, can raise a flag to Google that something is unnatural, and someone is doing some sloppy SEO. Learn all about how to boost your Google rank with backlinks from our Link Building Guide.

Citation Signals

Furthermore, including keywords unnaturally into your pages may lead to keyword stuffing. On the other hand, Google does use a specific algorithm as a signal that determines the relative importance of the web page in Google Search – PageRank. In researching this article, the author spoke directly to Pedro Dias (former Google employee), Ammon Johns (SEO Pioneer), and Dan Taylor (Russian search engine and technical SEO expert). Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines used to be a closely guarded document at Google that was eventually leaked online. Google now openly publishes the document as an example of what its Quality Raters are looking for when they manually review websites.

You can employ several tools, including Google PageSpeed Insights to test page speed. It shows them which pages are related to one another and helps crawlers discover new pages. They can also pass on link juice to underperforming pages, helping them rank higher in SERPs.

• Learn how to connect search, AI, and PPC into one unstoppable strategy.
• To make a website more engaging and user-friendly, we must follow the best practices of web architecture.
• So if you use images on your page, you want to make sure they’re optimized for SEO.
• The Google Penguin penalty tends to focus on your backlink profile.

With most web traffic now coming from mobile devices, mobile-friendliness is another aspect of page experience. Choosing the right image format (JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF) is essential for optimization. JPEGs are typically better for photographs due to their balance of quality and file size, while PNGs are suitable for images requiring transparency. Refer to our dedicated tutorial on link-building techniques to build quality links for your website. Anchor text, the clickable text in a hyperlink, should vary naturally to reflect how people genuinely link to your content. Natural variation means using a mix of branded, exact match, partial match, and generic anchor texts.

Understanding Click-Through Rates (CTR)

A recent study by SEMrush found that backlinks were strongly correlated with higher Google rankings. But if you’re willing to publish amazing stuff, you have SEO Anomaly a good shot of ranking in Google for your target keywords. That said, you don’t just want to add a bunch of random internal links. Yes, random internal linking is probably better than no internal linking at all.

Yes, HTTPS Is Still A Ranking Factor

In Google Search Console’s “Crawl Error” report, there is a tab dedicated to these errors. These typically happen because the request for the URL timed out, so Googlebot abandoned the request. View Google’s documentation to learn more about fixing server connectivity issues. Information architecture is the practice of organizing and labeling content on a website to improve efficiency and findability for users.