The ranking of a website is the position obtained on the search results page. Namely the SERP. This is the simple and immediate definition of a concept that, in reality, hides a series of infinite implications that form the background to a decisive branch of web marketing: SEO.
Search engine optimization, optimization for search engines, is based only on achieving a good ranking for the website. Positioning yourself high in the SERP, as the first result, guarantees a series of strategic advantages. This is why it is right to understand what SEO ranking is for a website and what it entails in terms of benefits, commitment, and resources to invest.
What are ranking, definition, and explanation?
This term derives from the English verb to rank, i.e., to classify. The ranking of websites is the operation that search engines, not just Google, carry out to classify portals in the results of the SERP. This occurs based on various qualitative factors which precisely determine the order in which the snippets are presented to the user who has made a query.
Close to this concept of classification of websites and the competition generated around the most interesting searches, the profession of search engine optimization was born, that is, SEO, which takes care of the optimization for search engines of websites, e-commerce, and blogs.
Why is site ranking important?
SEO focuses on the operations to improve the positioning of a website because, from these results, it is possible to obtain advantages to increase visits from potential customers. The objective is always to define the ranking of a website based on the goals to be achieved: the aim is to position web pages for information searches and transactional ones (dedicated to the conversion, purchase, or reservation) for the quality of the content and not for having paid a Sponsored.
The website’s ranking is essential to improve the authority of the project, to be found in the organic results, and to implement brand awareness. That is the recognition of the activity and the name.
How to increase website ranking?
The reality is simple: there are results in a serp, and most clicks are concentrated on the first ones. Therefore, it seems obvious to have to concentrate a lot of resources on the ranking work—a phase of the Google process after crawling and indexing pages. The search engine scans the content. If the suggested rules (such as the noindex) allow the spider to enter, it indexes the publication and then positions it by evaluating the various factors. How to try to influence this stage? Here are the essential points of the work to be done online.
On page SEO
This includes all the activities that allow the SEO expert and other professionals, such as bloggers and copywriters, to optimize web pages for specific public needs. It starts with good keyword research to analyze the queries, the advantages that can be obtained with a virtuous positioning, the behavior of the competitors, and the strategy to be activated.
Then the editorial plan is defined, and the analysis of the searches to organize into information (to be covered with blog posts), navigational and transactional, which are useful for transforming users into customers or leads. This balance also includes optimization of internal links and meta tags such as titles, descriptions, and robots. Remember the web page’s structure with the various H1, H2, etc.
Off-page SEO
Website ranking is connected to the concept of PageRank (PR), a mathematical formula that indicates the value of a page about the links received. As you can well imagine, these are the starting point for dealing with off-page SEO: the techniques necessary to increase the ranking through signals that come from outside and which are not under the control of those in charge of a project.
Off-page SEO is aimed at acquiring mentions and inbound links that must be nofollow-free to have any value in SEO terms. The world is that of link building, but there are other nuances that can help obtain useful links for ranking a website. For example, you often work with digital PR to collect mentions thanks to publications in local and national newspapers, link earning to register connections with content marketing work, and then reach other techniques, which can be risky such as the creation of PBN (private blog network). Remember that Google tends to penalize link schemes.
Onsite SEO
Many include this definition in on-page SEO. To be precise, on-site work involves the entire portal structure and concerns the organization of the project. For example, you can address page loading speed, Core Web Vitals, and everything related to user page experience, resource hierarchy, tree structure, crawl budget optimization, and sitemap insertion. XML in Google Search Console.
How to check the ranking of a website?
If the positioning of a portal can be considered a decisive factor for the success of a digital project, it seems obvious to aim for the need to check the ranking on Google. For a quick check, you can go to a browser tab, incognito, so as not to pollute the results from your personal history and do some searches. Are you working on your domain?
You can use a free SEO tool, namely the Google Search Console. In the Performance Reports section, you will find an in-depth analysis of placements and rankings, including images and videos.
Then there are other advanced tools that are useful for your domain and your competitors. For example, with SEMrush, you can set essential keywords for your business and monitor the rankings as they evolve over the months. While with Seozoom, it is enough to do a keyword search to have a diagram of the positioning in the SERP with the different ranking changes that have occurred over time.
Do you want to improve your SEO positioning?
There is only one solution to follow: you must face the challenge with the support of an SEO expert, a professional who will help you find the right solution for your needs without chasing useless goals related only to vanity metrics. SEO positioning must be functional and defined by precise and achievable KPIs.
