In part 7 we learned about UX Signals, Page Age, User-Friendly Layout, Parked Domains, Useful Content, Contact Page, Domain Trust, Site Architecture, and Site Updates.
In this blog post, we will discuss some technical factors and EAT signals.
71.Presence Of Sitemap
Creating a sitemap is important for every website’s SEO health. Sitemap helps search engine bots look for the pages on your website and rank them accordingly. This also helps in indexing those pages that aren’t indexed after publishing.
Here is what John Mueller from Google has to say about Sitemap:
72.Site Uptime
As you know a website’s speed is directly related to the server on which the website is hosted. If the server goes down or a website is hosted on a shared hosting the uptime goes down and hence the page loads slow.
Site uptime can affect rankings and the slow loading pages can be deindexed.
73.Server Location
Server Location can be important when you are targeting a specific geographical location or a country perhaps. It has a direct influence on where your website gets ranked in various search locations.
74.SSL Certificate
Google has confirmed that HTTPS is a ranking factor. SSL certificate is important because Google considers it a security signal.
Here is exactly what Google has to say about SSL certificates.
75.EAT
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is the most important ranking factor when it comes to YMYL (Your Money Your Life) websites. Websites that deal with financial information, and health and relationship-related advice must be optimized for EAT signals.
76.Duplicate Meta Information On-Site
Duplicate Meta Descriptions on your website can affect your rankings and visibility negatively. Make sure you run through Screaming Frog to find out all the duplicate meta descriptions on your website.
Go to Screaming Frog, enter a URL, click on meta description and choose duplicate.
77.Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb is a cool feature that helps users to know where they are on a website. It acts as a user-friendly interface.
Here is a visual example of Breadcrumb Navigation:
Moreover Google Search Central states that:
78.Mobile Optimized
When was the last time, you searched for some information on the desktop? Most of the users on Google are mobile users. Every day searches for directions, addresses, recipes, how-to guides, etc. happen mostly on mobile devices.
Google rewards sites that are optimized for mobile devices. If not, you may lose rankings and get penalized for not doing so.
79.YouTube
No doubt YouTube is often featured in the SERPs above organic results. YouTube is owned by Google and it’s doing everything to promote it on the SERPs.
In Fact, Google favours sites with videos embedded in the web pages.
80.Site Usability
A site that is not user-friendly and cannot be easily operated and navigated by users can be harmful to SEO rankings. Such sites reduce time on pages, and increase bounce rates and overall pageviews on a website.