SEO is one of the most important aspects of internet marketing and it should be applied in all areas of your website so that you can rank well with search engines. Things keep on changing and search engines are working harder to better the user experience and help them find results that are relevant to what they actually need. SEO, therefore, is no longer about filling your content with keywords so that you can rank better. There are many other aspects that are being taken into consideration today. Learning the latest trends and things that work, can help take your business to greater heights.
UX signals and RankBrain algorithm
User experience signals have the significance today and they may still grow in their importance. RankBrain has been one of the greatest factors used in ranking. It is a signal which has made a tremendous contribution to the search result queries made. RankBrain can be defined as a stream which assists Google to actually sort out different search results. It is a signal used to measure just how the users interact with the results and then ranks them according to that.
It has to do with how long a user stays on a website. One result can rank first, but it may not have the kind of content that the user and this may make many users bounce from it and onto another site. RankBrain notices this and some changes are made.
This means that pages can be ranked well, according to:
1. The dwell time, which is basically how much time a person stays on a given website and
2. The click through rate, which is the number of people who actually click on a specific search result.
Dwell time
RankBrain concentrates on dwell time. Google actually uses dwell time to rank results. Usually, the dwell time for most results that make it to the top of the search is around 3 minutes. It doesn’t come as a coincidence that the pages which boast a great dwell time are actually the best ranked. RankBrain up ranks sites based on this. This is based on the assumption that someone stays on a page longer because they actually like the content that is within. When most of the people spend a lot of time on the same page, it tends to be quite clear that the content within is indeed valuable.
CTR and RankBrain
It is possible for RankBrain to put a site higher in the search result than it truly deserves. However, when the page has CTR which is above average, the page truly deserves a boost in the ranking. If people don’t click on a result, Google may have on business showing it in the top results and vice versa. It is therefore necessary for you to try as much as you can to boost the CTR for your site. The organic CTR should be boosted and you should come up with Meta descriptions and title tags which are greatly engineered to get you more clicks.
In 2019, you will need to think more critically about CTR, especially if you want to make it big in SEO. This has to do with RankBrain, Google ads, Google lists, and Google wiki result.
Google seems to be crowding the organic results with sections like people also ask, carousels, Ads, and answer boxes. Therefore, you will need to try as much as you can stand out from the rest. The result that appears in Google should entice people to click on it or people will simply ignore.
Featured snippet
It is important to rank your content in a featured snippet. You notice that a percentage of search results always have featured snippets and they are actually getting lots of clicks too. Getting content to appear within the featured snippet happens to be very easy. The very first thing to do is to actually find opportunities for the same.
Find the keywords that you rank for and keywords that already have got a featured snippet. The reason why you need to find out the keywords that you rank for is due to the fact that almost all the featured snippets come from pages which are the first to rank for the term. This means that if you are not among the top 10, you might not actually get the opportunity to be featured.
You can use Ahrefs to find out the keywords which have featured snippet that you actually rank for. This is a report which you can use to your advantage and one that can really help you in 2019 SEO.
You need a snippet bait which is usually a content block of around 40-60 words that is designed in such a way that it can be ranked in the snippet spot. Most of the snippets that are featured are usually within this word limit. It is also important to format the content for as many types of snippets as possible. Paragraph snippets are very popular and they are commonly the most featured.
Content
In the past, Google used HTML through which your page would be analyzed to tell just how many times you used given keywords. The content you had determined how you ranked according to the keywords within.
The keywords would be checked in:
• H1 tag
• Description tag
• Image ALT text
• URL
• Title tag
As much as that is still applicable, there are many other things that Google looks at today, the context is carefully evaluated, not just content. Google is usually determined to offer you the best result. Sometimes the best is not always keyword stuffed. The best pages are supposed to cover a topic in an in-depth manner offering the readers quality. When the content is great, then the searcher can have all that they are looking for in a single place. You may note that ideal content is ranking better and better today. This is something that you would best concentrate on in the coming year.
Conclusion
There are many things to consider when you want to be good at SEO. It helps to know that it is not all about filling your content with the keywords that you rank for. People will notice if your content doesn’t give them any value and the bounce rate will be much higher. Keep in step with the latest trends, apply them diligently, give great content, and your website will definitely rank higher due to satisfaction.
Category: SEO marketing
Keywords: content, RankBrain, UX signals, keywords
Tags: online marketing, SEO marketing, content marketing
