SEO Guide for 2019: tips that will help you master Google

Today I bring you the most important factors in 2019 to position yourself high on Google and dominate the rankings.
These SEO factors have recently been revealed by the same Google and other authorities in the industry.

Now, let’s see what are the best SEO strategies for 2019.

1. Rankbrain: the third most important positioning factor.

Although there has been a lot of talk about the Rankbrain over the past few years, Google recently announced that this is now the third most important factor for positioning in Google.
If you’ve spent a lot of time researching about web marketing, you know about the recent updates of Google algorithms and how this is now going from focusing on the number of links a blog receives to user behavior during a visit to decide what position should appear this in the SEPRs.

What is Google’s Rankbrain and how can it affect your positioning in Google?

The Rankbrain is a machine-learning artificial intelligence system that determines what content to show in the top positions of Google every time a user does a search.

This works on its own and doesn’t need the supervision of engineers to determine what content to show on the first pages of the search results.
Basically, this analyzes how users interact with the search results and based on this, it decides which of all is more relevant to the user’s search to position it in the first places.

For example, if we search Google “free themes for WordPress”
If the third result looks particularly interesting, we click on it and spend a lot of time analyzing the contents of this entry.
Immediately Rankbrain will take note that the third result has more relevance than the first two and is going to give it a push, raising it a couple of boxes.
But, if we click on the first result but immediately we realize that it is not the content we are looking for, we are going to click back to return to the results page.
If once in the search result we click on the third result and it’s exactly the result we are looking for and we have a good time reading the entry Rankbrain will understand it and will surely position the page in first place.

As you can see, Google is focusing primarily on two things:

• The average time on a page.
• Clickthrough rate (CTR).

Rankbrain and the average time on a page

Google now focus much more on the behavior of users and how they interact with the search results. This is why we want to improve the average time of users on our blog.

A recent study by SearchMetrics confirmed that the average time of the first ten positions in Google is 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
The previous one corroborates that the pages with the most content tend to be positioned higher. And they are right, if you like the content of a blog, it is more likely that you spend a lot of time in this reading what you have to teach you.
To see the average time of your blog you can do it in your Google Analytics account.

Rankbrain and the CTR (Percentage of clicks).

Let’s now talk about the percentage of clicks and how this can affect the positioning of your blog in 2019.
The CTR (click through rate) of a blog is the percentage of times that users click on it every time it appears in the Google search results.
That is, if your blog receives 50 clicks for every 100 times that appear on the first page of Google then the CTR of this is 50.
If the CTR of your blog is higher than the other search results Rankbrain will position it higher because it is a sign that your blog offers exactly what people want to find when they do a Google search.

The above also leads us to the conclusion that the links pointing to a blog are not as important as they were a few years ago. Although make no mistake, these remain a fundamental part of your web positioning in 2019.

To improve the CTR of your blog you will want to have excellent titles and meta descriptions in your blog so that they attract people and click on your blog and not on the competition.
You can see the CTR of your blog by accessing your Google Webmasters account.

2. Load time: a factor that many blogs ignore.

The loading time of your blog is very important and you have to make sure that this is the best possible.
Not only is this important for users not to leave your blog but also because Google takes it into account and can make you lose positions if this is not good.
To see the loading time of your blog you can use the Google PageSpeed ​​Insight tool.If you want to go even further you can also use the GTmetrix tool. Also free.
There are several important factors that can improve or worsen the loading time of your blog and then these are the most important.

Web hosting

No matter how much better is the SEO on the page of your blog if you don’t have a good hosting service your blog will never load fast. As simple as that.
The idea is that your blog loads in less than three seconds. If after three seconds your blog has not loaded the safest is that users leave your blog to go find another that meets your expectations.
If your readers leave your blog because it takes a long time to load, not only will you lose audience but also Rankbrain will take it as a sign that your blog is not suitable to show in the first places of Google and for sure lose positions.

WordPress plugins to improve the loading time of your blog

I’m going to give you a brief introduction to these two Plugins, which you should use with your WordPress blog.

W3 Total Cache

This is one of those best Plugins that is mandatory to use with your WordPress blogs.
This creates a copy of your blog in the cache of the servers of your blog. This is done to save your blog time and not have to go directly to the servers every time a user wants to access this.
Each time a user accesses your blog a new copy of the entries, photos, and other important information is stored and then show that and other users such copies.

Smush Image Compression and Optimization

The work of this Plugin is very simple but it improves the loading time of your blog in a big way.This reduces the loading time of your blog by reducing the size of the images of this.If you keep the original size of the images you upload to your insurance blog it will take too long for the servers to load them.If you have not yet asked for it, you can do it right now and the best part is that once you install it, this Plugin will scan all the images already uploaded to your blog to reduce the size of these.

3. Google Mobile First Index and the importance of having a mobile version of your blog.

Another point that we will cover in the positioning factors of 2019 is to offer a mobile version of your blog.
Google has already announced several times that the mobile version of your blog is considered important when deciding what position to give to your blog in the SERPs. We call this the Google Mobile First Index.
Factors to take into account to ensure that the mobile version of your blog works according to what is recommended by Google.One of the things I like most about Google is that it offers many tools that allow us to see the statistics of our blog and find faults in it.
For this part of the SEO guide 2019, we will use again the Google PageInsights and the mobile optimization tool, also from Google.
The first tool analyzes the load time in both the mobile version and the desktop version, giving a score to these two that goes from zero to 100.
The second one ensures that a user can easily access and use your blog in the mobile version of their cell phone.
If the loading time of your blog presents a problem or is not optimized correctly for mobile this tool will tell you the reasons why it does not load well.
Some of the reasons why your blog does not load fast include that you need:

• Minify JavaScript, CSS y HTML.
• Reduce the response time of the server.
• Specify browser cache.
• Make sure there are not too many redirects.
• Improve the size and weight of the images.

Tips to improve the mobile version of your blog and the loading time.These are some of the tips that can help you improve the experience of your readers every time they access the mobile version of your blog.

Make sure you use a template that offers an optimized mobile version.Although the companies that develop templates for blogs have this in mind, it is not, besides, to verify that the topics they offer also offers a mobile version.
If it’s within your budget, I recommend using a template (WordPress themes) Premium. This is because these templates are focused on improving the SEO of your blog, so they surely come with an already optimized mobile version.

Remove any Pop-Ups type.

I’ve never been a fan of pop-ups since they are quite irritating.
Now imagine opening a web page from your cell phone and immediately receive five pop-ups asking you full of ads, the safest thing is that you leave this website to not return.
As simple as that, do not use pop-up windows in the mobile version of your blog.

Optimize on page SEO

Make sure that the optimized on-page SEO of your blog is up to date. For this, I have created a separate guide on WordPress on page optimization.

4. The importance of having better content than the competition.

A few years ago, Google wanted to make us believe that content was king. Not all us believed this since we knew that it was almost an obligation to create links that pointed to our blogs to have better positioning in Google.
Today I can assure you that Google is right, content is king.
But beware, I don’t mean to create content just for the sake of creating it. The content must be complete and informative. And this brings us to the following. Create content for readers and not for Google. Going back a few years ago, SEO was much easier. You just needed to add the keyword you wanted to position in Google within the title, meta descriptions, sometimes within the article and that’s it.

Nowadays it is not so easy and more knowing that Rankbrain constantly analyzes how readers behave when visiting our blog.
Although it is worth clarifying that doing a search for keywords and making sure that they go within the title and description is still important, but not as much as before.
If your focus is not to write quality content that your readers love then you will fail in your career as a blogger and you will not generate sales with whatever the product you want to sponsor with your blog.
And I do not mean to write thousands and thousands of words in each post. I mean writing content that talks about every aspect of the topic you’re dealing with.
I mean to teach something new to your readers or help them solve a problem or doubt they may have.

How to write better content than your competition

This question is easy to answer and at the same time, it is not.
To start we will talk about the number of words you should include in your posts.
If your entries contain less than 2,000 words you have already started badly. As a general rule, your entries must have at least 2,000 words.
It all depends on how extensive the subject you want to deal with each post and also how much content the competition has already written.
This brings us to the next point.
If you want to know how much content you’ll need to write to make your readers fall in love, Google will search for the keyword you want to appear on Google and analyze how much content the competition has already written.
If the blog that appears in the first position has written 3,000 words I’m sure you can easily write 4,000 words or as many as necessary to please your readers and ensure they spend more time reading your content.

Use of LSI Keywords

We are going to introduce another new term that maybe few have heard before. I am referring to LSI Keywords or Latent Semantic Indexing in English.
Although it seems complicated this is translated to use words or terms like the words for which we want to position ourselves high in Google.
This is also because Google and other search engines and websites focus on semantical position and not based on how many times a keyword appears in a post, as was done before.
We also do it with the intention of letting Google know what a certain entry is about and so it is easier for this to know when or how it should appear in the search engines.
To know which LSI Keywords to include within our entries we can use Google’s suggestions when we look for something in it.
For example, if we enter the word “chicken recipes” inside Google, it does not immediately suggest other words you could use.

Search for LSI keywords in google

Similarly, after doing the search, at the end of the search results, we can see other suggestions of phrases that Google gives us.

This is perfect since we can use these suggestions to find new keywords by which to position ourselves on Google and also give us new ideas on how to extend an entry with new content and do it better than the competition. Visual content: an ace up the sleeve to keep readers.Remember the last time you visited a blog that was just a pile of words and had no visual content. Bored, right?
The visual content not only helps your readers to understand what you want to explain to them but also will entertain them, improving the bounce time of our blog.
As this study shows (in English), 37% of marketers said that visual media is the number strategy they use in their online businesses.
And when I say visual media, I do not mean just images. I’m talking about videos, comparative tables, percentage charts, studies are done, infographics, slides, etc.
All these are excellent not only because they improve the bounce time of your blog, but they can also help you position yourself higher in Google since the latter uses them to identify what an entry is about.

5. SSL Certificates: a way to tell your readers and Google that your blog is safe.

Another SEO factor for 2019 that we can not leave behind is the SSL certificates and the importance that Google has given to these during the last years.

What is an SSL certificate and how does it work?

SSL certificates allow you to encrypt the personal information of your clients from your browser to the servers of your hosting. Basically, it’s a way to tell your readers that in your blog it is safe to enter your personal or payment information since third parties will not be able to access it.
When a blog uses SSL certificates its web address changes from HTTP: // to https: // and you can see it at the top of the screen. If you use Chrome as your browser Google adds a padlock at the beginning of the URL.

How to get SSL certificates?

Obtaining SSL certificates is very simple … well, everything depends.
Depending on the hosting provider you have, they may be free. If not, there are some companies that can charge you from $ 30 to $ 60 per year just to make sure that your readers’ information is secure.
If you are not sure, contact your hosting provider and ask if it is included in your hosting package or not.
Also, make sure to change the address of your blog in your Webmaster and Analytics account so that Google knows about the change of address and can track your blog without any problems.

We have come to the end of this guide to SEO factors for 2019 and what are the best practices to position yourself higher in Google. If you think something was missing or you have any questions, don’t forget to leave a comment.