What Is

What Is Page Ranking and How You Can Improve Yours?

Page ranking is a vital marketing strategy plan to keep in mind when marketing your brand in an online space. But what is page ranking? Why is it so important to keep in mind?

Maybe you’ve heard of page rankings before, but you’re not sure what it means or how to optimize for it in your marketing strategy. Have no fear, because we’re here to help! In this post, we’ll explore what page rankings are and the factors you should focus on to improve it.

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What is page ranking?

Your page rank refers to where your business appears in search results lists. When you enter a question or term into a search engine, you’re met with a long list of website links that can potentially solve your problem. Page rankings list these websites in order of most relevant and helpful to least relevant and helpful.

When you search for a particular topic, the first link is the result that the search engine considers as the best. The subsequent links slowly decrease in value.

Once you get several pages into the search results, they likely won’t match your search anymore or will look very unreliable. That’s why it’s so important to have a high-ranking site. The lower ranked your site is, the lower the chances of users clicking on your site.

What is Google PageRank?

As you learn about page ranking, you’ll probably see the term “PageRank.” This ranking system is specifically for Google search engine results pages (SERPs). The system was created more than 30 years ago, and Google still uses it to some extent.

This ranking algorithm uses backlinks to determine whether a site is reputable. Backlinks are links on other business’ sites that lead directly back your site.

To gain a higher page ranking, the links leading back to your site must be reputable and trustworthy. For example, if WebMD links to your website, Google will understand that you have authority in medical topics.

The more authoritative links you earn, the higher your rank on SERPs could be. Alternatively, if you have many links that aren’t from reputable sites, your page ranking will be lower, or your page could be mistaken for a spam page.

PageRank was influential for search engine optimization (SEO) in the past because it was Google’s primary ranking factor. Each site received a ranking number between 0 and 10, with 10 being the highest. Google also displayed this ranking in their toolbar.

However, sites began to misuse the tool to rank highly without providing quality information. Buying links and other frowned-upon practices led to inaccurate rankings, so Google removed PageRank from the toolbar.

Google has since added other ranking factors besides links. While PageRank is still used, it’s not the only ranking algorithm available.

What does page rank have to do with SEO?

As a digital marketer, you probably know that SEO is essential. Most marketing work focuses on optimizing a page to appear in relevant search results. Page ranking goes hand-in-hand with SEO because as you optimize your page to appear in search results, you also want it to appear high on those results pages.

If you’ve worked to improve your page for SEO, you’ve likely implemented practices to improve page ranking as well.

6 Page ranking factors to optimize for

Now that we’ve answered the question of what is page ranking, let’s look at how you can improve your page rank.

Google’s PageRank used links to rank pages and decide how to display them on SERPs. Now, many factors influence where your page falls in a page ranking.

Rather than strictly trying to build many high-quality backlinks, your focus should be making your site useful and easy to navigate for searchers.

Here are the top six ranking factors you can optimize for.

1. High-quality content

Since Google and other search engines have adapted to improve user experience, they award higher rankings to sites that provide quality content users want. There are several elements to consider for high-quality content, including how your content offers value to users, and how it solves a problem for them, or offers valuable information.

2. Links

While links aren’t the only ranking factor anymore, they’re still necessary. Internal linking, or linking to pages within your site, will help search engines map the structure of your website. External links and backlinks demonstrate authority.

If you want to discover how many links you have on your site, you can use a link counter tool and build an SEO strategy based on those results.

3. User Experience (UX)

UX refers to how easily users can access and navigate your website.

Have you ever visited a website and immediately clicked out of it because its layout was too confusing and made it difficult to find the information you were looking for? That’s bad UX design.

When you optimize your website for UX, you also improve your chances of earning higher page rankings. Good UX keeps users coming back to your site rather than clicking away after one glace at your home page.

4. Mobile use

Sites often appear differently on mobile devices, especially if your business doesn’t have a site that works on various screen sizes. Google ranks sites well that have mobile-friendly website formats because many people search for information on mobile devices.

To improve your page rankings, you should prioritize creating a mobile-friendly website. (Psst, this is also a great way to improve UX too!).

5. On-Page optimization

This ranking strategy includes anything you implement on your website. To perform on-page optimization, focus on improving titles, meta tags, keywords, anchor text, and more. By optimizing on-page elements, you improve your overall website and can even improve UX by making things easier to find.

For example, include keywords in blog headings to make the information easy to skim.

6. Location

If you do business in a particular geographic area, you want your business to show up when users in that region search for your services. To improve local search ranking, show that you offer the services users need and establish yourself as the most well-known business in the area.

Considering E-A-T for SEO

Another effective strategy to consider for page ranking is E-A-T. This acronym stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Google says that these three factors impact search engine ranking.

This acronym covers many of the ranking factors described above. If you focus on these rating factors when creating your website, users will appreciate the quality of your site, and search engines will rank it higher as well.

SEO services from WebFX to improve page ranking

Page ranking is essential for SEO, making it a top priority for any digital marketer or business owner. Current search engine ranking algorithms use various factors to decide where sites should rank. If you want to improve general SEO or specific aspects of your website, like links, the digital marketing experts at WebFX can help.

Launch your site to the top of search engine rankings by contacting WebFX for SEO services today!

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