Discover 14 Essential Google Ranking Signals for 2016 | Varn

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10 December 2015

Discover 14 Essential Google Ranking Signals for 2016


The best advice is often simple. Like build an authentic website with quality content and develop a strong brand, instead of obsessing about potential ranking signals. Because at the heart of Google’s objectives is their aim to make the best websites shine the brightest. However, once you see results from following fairly simple SEO tips you will realise it is also important to get the SEO essentials right. Whilst many SEO signals are widely known and accepted, like keywords in titles, what about what will be important for 2016? Here are a few signals we recommend you look at – as they could potentially affect your rankings.

Signals That Affect Page Ranking

  1. Be Who You Say You Are. Contact Info must match your Who Is info. Authenticity is important.
  1. Oldies Are Goodies. Backlink age – older links have more power. Poor quality websites linked to your website is not such a good idea, however.
  1. Don’t Scratch Too Many Backs. Do not exchange links excessively – Google does not like favour for a favour link exchange.
  1. Be A Real Person. Google does not like auto-generated content. If you are producing computer created copy beware as you may be penalised. Grammar and spelling count too.
  1. Pop Out Pop Ups. Tempted to create Pop-up ads? It’s seen as a poor user experience and will impact your SEO.
  1. Google Likes Google. Registration of the site with Google Local or Google Business will be a positive move.
  1. Links That Mean Something. Internal link popularity can be a good signal of usefulness to visitors. Make internal links ones that have genuine value.
  1. Stronger Branding Counts. One of the more contentious factors from the list of over 200 signals, that have done the rounds, is about how LinkedIn can influence your SEO. Having staff profiles on LinkedIn as well as a business listed on there has been said to be beneficial to SEO. This may well be the case indirectly – as the stronger your brand is, the more likely that you will generate traffic, attract links and have a generally higher profile – which will be good for your SEO. Google is likely to consider social media closely in its algorithms but just how ‘exactly’ it does this is still in debate by pundits.
  1. Let’s Play Tag. Tags that are assigned to the page may affect rank.
  1. From The Highest Authority. Links from domains with restricted access – like .edu., .gov. are a good signal pointing toward an authentic site.
  1. Time Well Spent. Average time spent on a page will be an indicator of whether this is quality content or not. Keep visitors on the page – maybe with video or strong content. However – slow loading pages are not good.
  1. Deception Is A Downer. Don’t cloak your IP address! Manipulation, deception and hiding your true self are all red flags of bad intent and are the ways of web sinners!
  1. Deplete The Repeat. Excessive repetition of anchor text to a page is not good.
  1. I Link, Therefore I Am. Too many links from a site owned by the same registrant is a bit ‘me, me, me’ for Google and can look like you are trying too hard to bolster your websites in an unnatural way.

For more expert tips and advice on creating a higher quality website with good SEO principals contact the team at Varn.

Article by: Tom, Managing Director of Varn Digital Marketing More articles by Tom

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