Search Engine Friendly Website – 10 Things Google Loves to See on Every Website

If you’re NOT ranking in search, chances are you don’t have a very search engine friendly website, but these are the 10 things Google wants to see in your site that could change all that.

search engine friendly website

Source: Medium.com

If we sum-up everything Google wants on every website in just one word, it would be RELEVANCE.

Google doesn’t care what your website is all about. It simply cares that whatever purpose your website serves, it serves it well.

If you are still not familiar with how Google works, consider it as a vast librarian fetching information for its clients. If it’s resources are messed-up, incomplete, or irrelevant — they don’t get served. That’s why Google has provided a set of guidelines that every website on the internet should follow if it wants to get organic traffic.

Since the guideline is too big to read, we have listed the top ten things that Google would like to see on every website.

 

These are the 10 keys to a search engine friendly website and a boost in search rankings:

  1. Fast Speed

Nothing beats speed. Google has its very own speed test tool, which was made with the purpose of rating websites according to their speed. This means Google rates websites with faster speed on top, while those with the worst speed… nowhere in search.

google page speed

Source: Google page speed test tool screengrab

Google recommends that a page should load in under three seconds. This is the base-line it has set for the standard page speed of a website.

  1. Responsiveness

The second important thing, according to Google, is the website’s mobile responsiveness. Since we are using multiple devices to view a website including mobile, desktop, and tablets, Google recommends that a website is mobile-friendly. It has launched its AMP responsive framework to help websites become responsive.

Google also has a responsiveness test designed specially to rate and grade websites accordingly in SERPs.

is your webpage mobile friendly

Screengrab: Google mobile speed test

  1. SSL Certificate

Google wants that all websites online are secure so that the information of users stay protected. SSL certificates are cryptographic signatures that let the browsers know that a website is secure. You can install an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt.

Last year, Google made SSL certificate a ranking factor in its search algorithm. Also, the Google Chrome browser now shows all websites that don’t have an SSL certificate installed as ‘not secure.’

  1. Quality Links

Google loves websites that have quality inbound links. There is a reason websites like Washington Post, CNN, Bored Panda, and many others rank higher in search engines. It is because they all have inbound links from other high domain authority (DA) websites.

In Google’s language, if one website links to another website, it means that it is endorsing that website. When a website has hundreds of types of quality inbound links, Google treats it exceptionally well. That’s why many resort to guest posting to build quality links.

 

  1. Proper pagination, Rich Snippets – Schema Markup

Google bots want that all websites have a proper structure in which one page links to the other and forms a vertical hierarchy of pages.

Source: Deepcrawl

It allows Google bots to understand which page should be given more importance on that website. Moreover, it also wants that all pages are connected to other pages so that the link juice can be distributed evenly across the website. It allows Google to index all essential pages on that website without a problem.

Similarly, Google also wants that all these pages have schema markup available. Before 2016, Google couldn’t differentiate if a website is an ecommerce website, a recipe website, a news website, or a review website. So, it introduced the schema markup tags. These allow website owners to tell Google about what type of content they have on their websites. An example of proper pagination can be seen on Outlook Studios. See how they have made a complete structure of their website using a balanced approach.

  1. Balance of Internal & External Links

Google bots are bound to get confused when there are too many internal links on a web page. They think that this is a resource page of the website, and they won’t rank it on top. Similarly, if there are too many external links on a web page, they will consider it as a portal or a cloaked domain and eventually penalize it. Therefore, a website must have a mix of internal and external links on each page. Rand Fishkin of Moz has a complete guide on how to keep a link balance ratio.

  1. Proper On-Page Optimization

How will Google know if a website is rank-worthy?

That’s where the on-page optimization of the website helps. If a website is not optimized correctly for its desired keywords, it won’t get organic traffic. This is because Google detests websites that are not optimized for search engines. So, make sure that your website’s on-page is optimized correctly for search bots.

  1. In-Depth Content

Content will always remain king! Google values quality content, and that is why it always ranks in-depth, relevant, easy-to-understand content on top of the search rankings.

When creating a website, make sure that you hire an expert SEO content writer that can craft superb blogs relevant to your niche. The more deeply you cover a subject, the more Google will like it.

  1. Videos, Images, & Infographics

Google bots think just like humans. They get bored with websites that have bland, monotonous content. That’s why your website must have a mix of text, image, and video content. With multi-format content, your website can easily rank in Google SERPs for links, images, and even videos. You can embed videos through YouTube if you are unsure how to add videos to your website.

  1. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Last but not least, Google loves questions because it can then show these questions in ‘people also ask’ section on Google search.

position zero

Screengrab of Google search

The more questions you have answered on each page of your website, and the more optimized they are for search engines; the higher are your chances of ranking the website on the search engines.

Most websites today are only able to get to the top by getting prominence in ‘people also ask’ section – this section is also called as the ‘0 or position zero‘ on Google.

Bottom-line

Now that you know all about what Google likes and what Google dislikes on a website, are you ready to take your website to the top?

All the tips we have written above are proven and will offer the best ROI for your efforts only if you use them wisely.