Optimize These 6 Google Ranking Factors to Rank Higher in 2019

It's 2019, and every business on the Internet is already having a go at Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I mean, with about 91% of online companies doing SEO in one way or another in 2018, that's pretty much everyone, right?
And wait for this: 4+ billion people are now on the Internet, spending millions of fine dollars.
When you realise that 93+ per cent of all online experiences start with web search, it makes you want to take your SEO game more seriously so you can take your share of that money.
Question:
How do you take your SEO seriously and rank your website higher?
It starts with optimizing the most important Google ranking signals.

As you may know, there are over 200 of these signals. But today, we want to bring to your attention some of the signs we believe will significantly impact search this year. This should help you optimize your online presence more effectively.

5 IMPORTANT GOOGLE RANKING FACTORS FOR 2019

• Content

When it comes to online marketing, content is everything. In fact, it's been like that for the greater part of the existence of the Internet, and 2019 will be no different. You've probably seen the statement “Content is King” yeah?

In 2019, the content will become even more relevant when it comes to ranking on Google.

Just to be clear, we are talking about relevant, high-quality content; and this is not just text or blog posts but any content that you put on your website and other online platforms (like YouTube, social media, etc.) to teach users and help them learn about your business, product, topics, industry, and so on.

With that in mind, one thing you should do this year with your content is to DIVERSIFY. Instead of focusing on creating blog posts thrice a week, try a mix of videos, blog posts, podcasts, webinars, infographics, and the like. Why? Because 2019 is the year of content diversification. More than ever, users are keen on consuming more than just text. They want more engagement. They want more flexibility. They want more options.

The usage of images will be more than useful in the upcoming years. As you might have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words; it won’t be of any doubt to have the same impact in digital marketing. If you’re not having a budget to hire a designer and get images designed for your website or social media campaign, then there’s no need to worry. You can explore ideas with the images you have and find royalty-free pictures to aid your digital marketing. For this purpose, you can take the assistance of the search by image tool that makes picture-based searches a hassle-free task for everyone.

Also, in 2019, the structure of content will take centre stage. As much as search engines will care about what a piece of content says, they'll also care about how that information is structured or communicated.

With more and more searchers asking more specific questions than generic ones, it has become important for content to do more than pass information. Content structure plays a major role in how content ranks, especially for competitive keywords.

The structure of content refers to how content is used to solve the problem of the users or answer their questions. This includes everything that makes content easier to comprehend; from using sub-headers and bullet points to the type of language used to actually really structuring your content to answer user queries.

Couple this with creating conversational content, and you have for yourself top-performing content to conquer your space in 2019.

For the record, conversational content is different from the content structure in that conversational content interacts with human readers and engages them on a, well, conversational level. Where content is not conversational, it can easily bore the reader. When that happens, people will easily click the back button, increasing your bounce rate. The bounce rate is bad for SEO.

In fact, that's our next point.

• Dwell Time vs Bounce Rate

“Dwell Time” is basically the amount of time a searcher spends on your site before they revert to the search results page.

A shorter dwell time could mean that the content is not useful to the user. If more and more people keep clicking back, Google will think your content is unnecessary and won't rank it higher. It may even push it downward. There's no excuse for not improving how long people spend on your website.

The study finds that it’s not just the number of people using the Internet that has increased; the amount of time that people spend on the Internet has also increased considerably. The latest stats from GlobalWebIndex finds that the average Internet user now spends around 6 hours each day using Internet-powered devices and services.

That's roughly one-third of humans’ waking time.

To improve dwell time, your content has to be useful to the user and the information must be communicated in a way that the user can relate with. For instance, don't promise gold in your title and deliver stone in the content body. People will click back.

Also, the ability of your content to engage the user will determine how long they stay on your website.

Engaging content = longer dwell time = better rankings.

In other words, higher dwell times directly translate into a higher ranking.

How?

When people stay longer on your site, Google thinks the people love your content, so the search bots will push your page higher. This also happens negatively with “bounce rates.” When people continue to bounce off your web page seconds after they arrive on it from the Search Engine Results Pages  (SERPs), it says a lot about your website content and Google will frown at you

You can influence how people interact with your content and, by extension, how long they stay on your web pages. To influence this, you will have to go back to the drawing board regarding the quality of content you push out.

• Google RankBrain

RankBrain is an algorithm learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) system, which attempts to guess what searchers are looking for, and adapts the search results to provide better, more relevant information for user satisfaction. It is an extension of Hummingbird but with an added twist of AI and deep learning.

Since 2015, Google has been working on this machine learning/artificial intelligence search algorithm to deliver more focused and relevant search results. In 2019, RankBrain will continue to play an important role in determining rankings, providing turnkey answers to searchers fast.

For this REASON, RankBrain has become one of the highly important factors to consider when thinking about SEO strategies for ranking in 2019.

But not just that, RankBrain is considered one of the top three Google ranking factors along with content and backlinks, out of 200 plus.

How can you optimize for Google RankBrain?

Well, since RankBrain is designed to learn the language of the content in order to be able to present better results, content that focuses on providing true value to the user will definitely be ranked by it.

How can you create such content?

First off, create content for human readers and not for machines. The expectation is that the machine is trained to read content the same way humans would read it. If this is the case, it means that your content would be deemed relevant by RankBrain, and as such, would rank higher on the search engine.

Another interesting way RankBrain detects good content is through dwell time, as discussed earlier. If this AI-based search algorithm finds that people click and stay long on your search result, it'll automatically push it north. Why? It thinks that people love your content because you're providing relevant, valuable information.

You'd also want to use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords.
A tool like LSI Graph can prove helpful for finding LSI keywords.

How do LSI keywords help you rank higher? They provide Google with more information about your content and take care of related key terms people use.

Bottom line: Create awesome content that distinctively answers reader questions (questions they type into Google), improves your dwell time, and makes the most use of LSI keywords.

• Backlinks

Backlinks continue to pop up in conversations about ranking on Google.

This is mostly because they form the bedrock of the information that Google has about your website, including your site's Domain Authority (DA). Backlinks to your website from other relevant authority sites tell Google that other relevant authorities trust your website and content.

Backlinks affect where your website ranks and this is why it is an important factor to consider for ranking this year.

They serve as a way of informing Google that people trust the content you publish to the extent of linking back to it. And the more backlinks you have, the higher your chances of ranking higher.

Here are some useful but easy strategies for building legitimate backlinks in 2019:

• Use our Backlink Maker tool.
• Try guest posting
• Leverage broken links on other websites
• Get featured on blogger reviews
• Ask other bloggers to link back to your key content.

Here's our post on how to build thousands of backlinks without pain.

Want to track and analyze your backlinks or that competitor? Try our highly effective Backlink Checker (hint: it integrates with Ahrefs to provide you with the best results).

• Domain Security

You may have noticed that the URLs of some websites are preceded by “https” while others are not. The reason for this is simple: Websites with the “https” are secure because the domains have an SSL certificate.

SSL certificates are believed to improve a website's search engine rankings in the SERPs.

You’re probably thinking:” How does this affect my ranking on Google?”

Well, I'll tell you:

HTTP is short for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and is a process of transferring informational data from a particular website to the visitor's browser. Where there is the “S” which stands for Secure, it means that the informational data being communicated is secure and trustworthy.

This seemingly tiny shift makes a huge difference with Google because it helps them ascertain that the information they are indexing is secure and safe for the searcher.

In other words, Google now uses HTTPS as a ranking signal. Data analysis has shown that HTTPS websites have a higher ranking advantage over HTTP links, so switching to HTTPS will benefit any website, whether or not confidential information is involved.

In fact, in July 2018, Google started to flag off sites without SSL certificates as insecure on Chrome.

We've noticed that not many people have added HTTPS to their websites yet. You'd want to secure your website in 2019 using HTTPS vs HTTP to improve your relationship with Google and avoid hurting your rankings.

CONCLUSION

This year, the crown for the top position on Google could be yours for the take, but it starts with getting it right first. And there's something about getting it right from day one, or more conceivably, starting early.

You just set the right foundation from the onset and keep winning like a superstar. 2019 is still in its early stage, and there's no better time to get it right or set a proper foundation for your search engine optimization and online marketing than NOW. Use the information we've provided, and you'll be way ahead of the pack by mid-year.

We have the best SEO and content tools for you to take advantage of for free. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter to keep abreast of the latest happening in the world of search as well as the most disruptive SEO techniques throughout this year. Happy new year from us at SST!