Google uses a large number of factors to determine search rankings. Some of the variables carry more weight than others. Making it important to focus on specific areas of SEO and this list is a good start.
Mobile-First
Google rolled out the mobile-first indexing in 2018. Mobile-first indexing means that Google is using the mobile version of pages for ranking and indexing. Sites should be responsive to any device. When Google indexes mobile sites, it’s seeing the same content as the desktop site.
Make the website mobile-friendly, scale your images when using a responsive design, use short meta titles, and avoid pop-ups that cover your content. Remember with mobile less can be more. A lot of content on a page does not necessarily mean that you will get more traffic or better rankings.
Technical SEO
The idea of performing technical SEO may be intimidating, but thanks to the SEO tools available, it is not as daunting. Check your site with Google Search Console and fix any issues discovered. Also, you should fix duplicate title tags and meta descriptions.
Check your robot.txt for errors and optimize if needed. Audit your site, check the traffic stats, and consider removing or improving underperforming content. Fix any broken links because this is a user experience and potential rankings killer. Also, you should submit your XML sitemap to Google with Google Search Console.
Website Speed
On average, it takes 22 seconds for a mobile landing page to load. Yet 53 percent of mobile site visitors leave if it takes longer than three seconds. Slow page speed creates a poor user experience and used in consideration for ranking. For example, you could minimize HTTP requests for scripts, images, and CSS.
Other things you should be doing are reducing your file sizes by compressing and combining files where possible, have your CSS and JavaScript load at the same time, load your JavaScript after any important files, and keep plugins to a minimum.
User Intent
Creating great content, optimizing it, and getting trusted links is only a start for keyword ranking. Google’s goal is to understand the context and deliver search results based on the user’s intent. As a result, this makes advanced level keyword research and selection more critical.
You should recognize that some keywords and queries will be impossible to rank. A keyword’s contextual relevance needs to align with a search query, so before spending time and money trying to rank for a keyword or phrase, you need to look at the current ranking websites and phrases.
Content Marketing
By 2020 it is predicted that 44 zettabytes of data produced every day. Making it challenging to create content that stands out from the ocean of content on the internet. So, leverage images and videos to convert traffic or update low trafficked blog posts or pages.