How can you prioritize algorithm ranking factors and signals for your target audience?

2 Analyze your competitors' performance

The second step to prioritize algorithm ranking factors and signals is to analyze how your competitors are performing on search engines. Who are the top-ranking sites for your target keywords and topics? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they structure, format, and optimize their content? How do they engage and retain their visitors? By analyzing your competitors' performance, you can identify the gaps and opportunities in your niche, and benchmark your site against the best practices and standards. You can use tools like SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs, or Screaming Frog to conduct a competitive analysis.

3 Focus on the core ranking factors

The third step to prioritize algorithm ranking factors and signals is to focus on core ranking factors that apply to all websites and search engines. These factors determine the quality, relevance, and authority of your site and content, as well as affect your site's visibility, usability, and credibility. For instance, content should be original, informative, engaging, and well-written; it should match the audience's intent and provide value. Structuring with headings, subheadings, paragraphs, images, videos, lists, tables etc., as well as using keywords naturally and strategically are also important. In addition to content, links should be relevant, trustworthy, and diverse; they should point to and from high-quality and authoritative sites. Technical factors need to ensure that your site is fast, secure, and easy to crawl and index by search engines; they should also enhance the site's functionality, accessibility, and compatibility. These include site speed, mobile-friendliness, HTTPS, XML sitemap, robots.txt, schema markup, URL structure and navigation.

4 Adapt to the specific ranking factors

The fourth step to prioritize algorithm ranking factors and signals is to adapt to the specific ranking factors that vary depending on the search engine, the device, the location, the industry, or the type of content. These factors reflect preferences, trends, and innovations of different search engines and audiences, and they influence your site's ranking and visibility for different queries and contexts. For example, E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is a factor used by Google to evaluate the quality and credibility of your site and content. BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) is another factor used by Google to understand natural language and context of search queries. Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics used by Google to measure user experience and performance of your site. Lastly, Featured Snippets are a type of result displayed at the top of the search results page that provide a quick answer to a user's query. To optimize for these specific ranking factors, you should demonstrate credentials and qualifications, use clear and concise language, reduce page size, optimize images and videos, use structured data, create content that answers specific questions, use headings and subheadings, include relevant images and videos, avoid keyword stuffing and ambiguity, address intent of queries, eliminate render-blocking resources, avoid layout shifts and pop-ups.

5 Monitor and measure your results

The fifth step to prioritize algorithm ranking factors and signals is to monitor and measure your results on search engines. How are your site and content performing for your target keywords and topics? How are your site and content ranking for different search engines, devices, locations, and industries? How are your site and content affecting your traffic, conversions, and revenue? By monitoring and measuring your results, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO strategy, identify the areas of improvement, and adjust your priorities accordingly. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Data Studio, or SEO dashboards to track and analyze your results.

6 Keep up with the changes and updates

The sixth step to prioritize algorithm ranking factors and signals is to keep up with the changes and updates that search engines make to their algorithms and features. Search engines are constantly evolving and adapting to the needs and behaviors of their users, so you should stay informed and updated about the latest trends, developments, and best practices in SEO. You should also test and experiment with new techniques, tools, and opportunities to optimize your site and content for search engines. You can use resources like SEO blogs, podcasts, newsletters, webinars, or courses to keep up with the changes and updates.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?