Organic web search is at the heart of the efforts of commercial websites that want to improve their visibility on the Internet. The web pages that appear in the results of major search engines will be visited daily by many users, without their administrators having to do anything for that. In this way, you generate free traffic, which can potentially drive readers to become customers of your company. For this reason, good referencing on search engines often goes hand in hand with a high turnover.
This is why operators of online stores or websites often focus their efforts on optimizing their web pages for search engines. When it comes to search engines, the benchmark is obviously Google. However, optimizing a website for Google isn't easy. Over 200 factors influence the Google algorithms used to create and update the search engine results page (SERPs). Some of these factors are known and companies agree on them. Others are being kept secret to avoid targeted and unethical manipulation of these algorithms by companies. According to SEO specialists, however, there is a complete list of SEO criteria in circulation. The criteria listed below are considered to be the most likely.
Here's how to optimize your website for Google searches.
Our knowledge of Google’s algorithms is based on hints made by Google employees in interviews, press releases, or patent filings, empirical observations or tests. However, this list has no official value. These referencing criteria have the same been proven in daily practice. Web pages that have been optimized based on these criteria perform well in an organic web search:
Keyword URLs (keyword domain names).
If a URL has a keyword, search engines will associate it with relevant searches by relevance. A good Google referencing is obtained thanks to these URLs containing keywords. Over the years, incorporating keywords into a domain or subdomain has lost influence in SEO criteria. On the other hand, it is important that the addresses of the site are constructed in the form of "speaking" URLs for the visitor and not only by associating a combination of parameters.
Some SEO experts point to a link between the sequence of words in a URL and the ranking of search engines. According to them, the main keyword at the beginning of a URL would be of great importance in the referencing of the associated page. However, you should avoid combining several technical terms. Regardless of the search engine ranking, keyword domain names offer the advantage of having relevant search terms, similar to those of the URL, in bold in the search results.
Keyword in a <title> tag
Embedding relevant keywords in the <title> tag of a The HTML page is much more important than embedding keywords in the domain name (URL). This tag defines the title of a web page and is, therefore, a very important piece of content. The relevance of the signal is all the more important as the main keyword of the <title> tag is strong. Here too, a choice of relevant keywords has a strong influence on the web referencing of the page in question.
Keyword density.
In recent years, it has become common to manipulate the rankings of search engine results by accumulating keywords in the texts of web pages. Aware of these fraudulent manipulations, Google has modified its algorithms accordingly. In fact, algorithms now give less importance to keyword density, but keywords still determine the topic of a web page. It is not so much the frequency of use of relevant text keywords that are evaluated by search engine algorithms, but rather the relevance of a keyword in relation to a specific text.
To do this, Google uses the TF-IDF (Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency) relationship of a web page. Then the latent semantic analysis (LSA in English) comes into consideration and will allow thematically to appear a word cloud formed on the basis of the main keyword. In order to be properly classified, a text must always include a particular keyword accompanied by notions from the same lexical field. Text with common synonymous keywords automatically has a strong signal to Google.
Highlighting keywords .
The keywords can be highlighted using an HTML typographic indication, which signals to search engines the importance of the concept in question. We consider formatting as a referencing criterion, such as the use of bold (strong) or italic characters (em) which make it possible to distinguish keywords from the rest of the text. The influence of such distinctions on search engine ranking seems to be relatively small compared to other SEO criteria.
Keywords in titles
A special case in highlighting keywords is the placement of relevant search terms in the main HTML titles (H1) but also in the subtitles (H2 and H3). Google particularly assesses the keywords within these structural elements because they serve as signals of relevance and facilitate the synthesis of web content.
Keyword rooting (Keyword-Stemming)
Google does not consider keywords as rigid terms but, on the contrary will recognize the different grammatical variants of the search term on the basis of a common radical. In addition to web pages with exact combinations of keywords (Exact-Match-Keywords), Google also takes into consideration these keywords with different variations and grammatical forms. With its Calibri (Hummingbird) update, Google has significantly transformed its search algorithms, so that its crawler can better assess user intent and better understand semantic reports and synonyms.
This presupposes that the web pages optimized before this update, and therefore often based on a large number of exact combinations of keywords could be devalued by the American giant. Finally, the declensions of keywords, as well as the use of variants, are part of a natural process of text creation.
Alt & keywords attribute.
While Google’s web crawler is very efficient at analyzing web page text itself, it’s not as simple when it comes to graphics. It is for this reason that the information represented by a graphic, in thematic relationship with the content of the corresponding web page is indicated in the HTML code of this visual element.
This is why, in order to obtain a good ranking in the pages of the results of search engines, it is necessary to indicate essential information in the name of the file, the title, and the legend as well as in the alt attribute. In particular, it allows the indexing of graphics in the results pages dedicated to images, thus creating opportunities to increase traffic on the corresponding site. In addition to the SEO issue, this attribute also serves as a textual description (or textual alternative) for an image in the event of a display problem on the website.
Content structure
User-friendly content should be clearly and easily accessible. In this sense, it is recommended to integrate structural elements when creating your web pages such as enumerations, numberings or tables. Web SEO experts agree that a clear information structure helps Google's web crawler capture the content of a web page. These elements are considered by Google as quality criteria and it is for this reason that they are taken into account in the criteria of web references.
Internal links
Internal links serve as a link between the sub-pages of a domain. They allow visitors to quickly and easily reach the information they are looking for and therefore find relevant. At best, these links are integrated into what is known as optimized anchor texts. The better they describe the link target, the easier it is for a user to navigate. This is not only valid for human users. Web crawlers also like "talking" anchors that make it easier to interpret links. These aspects of the usability of a site are therefore taken into account in the Google referencing criteria.
HTTPS
Security is an essential aspect, and this also applies to web searches. Google rewards the use of secure data transmission via HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) in its ranking. The search engine algorithms take into account data encryption as a positive signal for the referencing of the web page. It is assumed, in the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization, in French "optimization for search engines"), that the taking into account of the use of HTTPS by Google will be officially announced as an SEO criterion.
Current content
Google referencing always focuses primarily on the user. In order to present the best possible search result, the indexing robot checks the topicality of the contents and assigns them a classification accordingly. Relevant topical content will be considered more relevant than older content. Websites with regularly updated content are therefore valued by Google. The web giant also indicates the date of the last update of a web page on the list of Search results, which reflects the importance given to the news for SEO.
This does not mean, however, that the web pages at the top of the results pages are all new or updated regularly. Old web content can also serve as an absolute benchmark for a particular Internet search. Finally, the level of timeliness of the content is only one factor among more than 200 referencing criteria.
Text length
The length of the texts is a decisive criterion to determine their relevance and quality in relation to the subject treated. The longer a text, the more informative its content. Many SEO experts assume that the length of the texts is associated with the position of the pages in the SERPs. This does not in any way mean that long texts are automatically better positioned in these SERPs.
Unique content.
A duplicate does not add any added value for the user. Duplicate content is therefore classified as irrelevant by Google and is therefore devalued in the SERPs. In the event of copyright infringement, an entire website may be excluded from the search index. This is why all website administrators should pay attention to the originality of their web content. This principle of uniqueness poses problems for large companies that offer identical products and whose descriptive product sheets are provided by the manufacturer, for example. An expensive but effective solution is to individualize product descriptions to make them unique. Copying existing text blocks is a behavior to absolutely ban if you want to increase traffic to your site.
Page loading speed
Google places great importance on the loading speed of web pages in calculating its usability for users. Emphasis is placed on two aspects: the loading time of the HTML page in question and the time it takes to display its various contents, in particular graphics or other elements operating under Java Scrip. While the loading of an HTML page should not exceed 500 milliseconds, Google has established a single 1.5 seconds around which the loading speed is respectively considered to be high or low.
The reasons for a long loading time can be linked to the use of an unnecessary style sheet, un-optimized graphics, too many scripts or excessive use of source code. Since Google takes into account the total duration of the entire display of a web page as an SEO criterion in its algorithms, it is recommended to optimize your web pages in this sense. Google offers the free Page Speed Insights tool to assess the performance of a web page and provide you with appropriate optimization recommendations.
Clean HTML code
An error in the HTML code of a web page is a sign of poor quality. As such, according to SEO experts, HTML errors will have a negative impact on the Google referencing of the page in question. Google has not confirmed this, however. To minimize the risk of devaluing your web pages, an administrator should strive to edit their own HTML code. A simple way to check the conformity of a new HTML code is the Markup Validation Service.
Mobile Friendly
So far, the mobile compatibility of a web page only affects the SERPs of mobile searches. Pages that have not been optimized for the use of smartphones or tablets are indeed penalized in search results for mobile devices. The "mobile-friendly" referencing criterion has had no consequence so far on search from a computer. Web page operators can check their compatibility with mobile devices using a specific free tool from Google.
Multimedia content
Web pages where texts are supplemented by images, videos or other multimedia elements not only arouse the interest of visitors but are also valued by Google algorithms. Cross-checking information via different channels always offers added value to the user. Web pages with multimedia content are positioned accordingly in the Google ranking.
Readability
The fact that Google favors texts that are easy to understand is undisputed. However, it is not clear how it is taken into account by Google, whether it is part of the algorithms or how it is evaluated. On the one hand, a text that is more accessible to all readers positively influences its SEO. On the other hand, the complex text is also potentially a quality factor. In this context, the Google index can help distinguish this high-quality content. Regardless of this, a web administrator should strive to provide quality readable content, geared towards user-friendliness and comfort. Texts formulated according to target groups ultimately increase the duration of visit to the web page, a factor that influences the ranking of all search engines.
Quality outbound links
Outbound links are considered "outside" links, which lead from one website to another. Web crawlers are programmed to follow these outbound links. If these referrals lead to high-quality websites, this positively influences the referencing of the sending site. In addition, these outbound links also allow the crawlers to delimit themes for different web pages. However, these links should be used with caution and moderation. Too many links could distract readers from your own content. To avoid dead links, your link targets should be checked regularly. If too many links are broken and lead to a blank page, this increases the risk of Google devaluing the site in terms of SEO.
Inbound links (backlinks or inbound links)
Inbound links, unlike outbound links, are links from other websites that direct users to your site. A correlation between the inbound links of a web page and its natural referencing on Google is considered very probable according to SEO experts. Indeed, sites with quality incoming links, also called backlinks, benefit from a good ranking in the SERPs. In the professional SEO environment, great importance is attached to improving the inbound links of a website. High link popularity is an important advantage for a site in terms of search engine optimization.
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