SEO rankings matter because they directly impact a website’s visibility and the chances of getting clicks from users. Page speed is measured by a few small ranking signals called Core Web Vitals. Page speed has been a well-known ranking signal since 2010 – it measures how fast are the pages loading to the users.
User Experience is Everything
And if they can’t access certain parts of your page, that’s going to hurt your search engine visibility too. If search engines are blocked from accessing the page (for example, from Robots.txt), they won’t index the page at all. To speed up the indexing of new and updated content, you can start by creating a sitemap in WordPress. A sitemap contains all the important pages that you want the search engine to know about.
- Sites that have a lower TTFB respond faster and have higher search result rankings than slower sites with a higher TTFB.
- They don’t want to mess around with rankings based on a factor that has no real relevance.
- It offers valuable insights into your website’s performance, search traffic, and potential technical issues affecting your SEO.
- This tool has a user-friendly interface similar to Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Apple Pages.
User behavior in search results
Google recently updated its documentation about ranking factors, removing page experience from the “ranking systems” documentation. It doesn’t mention HHTPS directly in its current documentation SEO Anomaly about page experience, but does mention security. While we captured over 40 different page metrics for each URL examined, most did not show any significant influence on search ranking.
Boost your local search ranking with Semrush Local
Optimizing for voice search involves focusing on natural language, question-based queries, and local SEO, as many voice searches are looking for immediate, local solutions. The goal is to structure your content in a way that directly answers the questions users are likely to ask, using a conversational tone that matches the natural speech patterns. Helpful content is defined by its ability to answer questions, provide solutions, and offer insights that users find beneficial and relevant to their search queries. It’s about moving beyond superficial coverage of a topic to delivering in-depth, actionable content that enhances the user’s knowledge or helps them make informed decisions.
Your website should be always up and running to keep serving the content to visitors and search engine bots. Create relevant content about the local area and share on your social channels, email lists and GBP. Also reach out to relevant local website owners and encourage them to link to your content.
Search engines use advanced algorithms that assess multiple factors—such as content relevance, website quality, and user experience—to determine the best results for users. Although social signals (such as likes, shares, and comments on social media) are not direct ranking factors, they do influence SEO indirectly. A strong social media presence can drive traffic to your website, increase brand visibility, and help earn backlinks, all of which can contribute to higher rankings. We’ve discussed content in this guide to Google SEO ranking factors.
You also stand a chance to rank in the featured snippets, which are the first search result for a search query. The more people click on your page in search results, the more Google will consider your content as relevant for a particular search query. For every piece of content that you create, you need to have one primary or target keyword and a few LSI keywords.