Google's Martin Splitt posted the first SEO Mythbusting series and in there, a developer asked him what can to help his sites and apps do better in search. What are the "top three things I should consider" he asked. Martin answered in the form of being a developer and because of that, did not include links.
Watch it, it starts at the 2:50 mark, here is the embed where it starts:
Now, Martin says the top three things a developer can do for SEO are:
(1) Content
(2) Meta data - titles and descriptions
(3) Site performance and optimizations
Now, meta descriptions are NOT a ranking factor at all. They just help determine what shows in the snippet in the search results. But Google does not use that for how to rank a web page in search. Don't believe me even based on me covering that numerous times here in the past? Here is Martin Splitt from Google confirming it is not a ranking factor:
Not a ranking factor, but what good is ranking high when nobody clicks on your page b/c the other results look more helpful? (:
— Martin Splitt @ 🇨🇭🏡 (@g33konaut) May 16, 2019
Second, he left out links - we all know links are for sure a top 3 ranking factor in Google. So I asked Martin why he left out links and he said basically SEOs focus too much on links and that is a bad thing.
Lemme quote John: https://t.co/FfrfhZ4Lyn
— Martin Splitt @ 🇨🇭🏡 (@g33konaut) May 16, 2019
He also added that developers don't really focus on links and developers don't build links:
Also note the context of the conversation: A web developer asking what they can do... organic links aren't something that the developer "does" 🤷♂️
— Martin Splitt @ 🇨🇭🏡 (@g33konaut) May 16, 2019
So he left it out.
So there you have it, these top three; content, meta data and performance are not the top SEO factors by Google but the top three things a developer can focus on when it comes to search. But yea, links are important and good quality content and fast pages helps with people linking to you.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
