Google Search Ranking Factors 

Search Engine Optimization is a continually changing industry. Google, for example, updates the algorithm that determines when, where, and how to display a certain link regularly to give the most relevant and accurate information.

Google has how many search engine top ranking factors? There are around 200 approved ranking criteria. Here are the primary Google Search engine ranking factors to use if you want to appear at the top of the SERPs, but first, let’s define what Google ranking factors are.

What Are Google Ranking Factors?

Search engine optimization (SEO) aims to move your website up in the natural search results, preferably to the top page. When discussing search, we use the word “organic” to refer to unpaid search results. It is distinct from paid results from PPC advertising.

Google organic ranks are created by an algorithm that considers different features and SEO indicators — these are your most important SEO factors.

We may never know all of the approximately 200 SEO ranking factors used by Google. But we do have a good handle on the majority of them. We also know that, although ranking variables and algorithms are subject to change, the attributes Google attempts to discern via them are expertise, authority, and trust (E-A-T). 

High-Quality Content

You’ve probably heard the SEO cliche “content is king.” And, regarding Google ranking factors, the quality of your content is really important.

Google will rank your content on top of its search engine results pages if you can develop distinctive, new, and beneficial information for visitors.

Google places a high value on the quality of your content. You can only expect better ranks if your content is worthwhile, no matter how well-optimized your website is.

Original, Unique, and Valuable Content

Google prioritizes original content. You want to design websites that react to the demands of your audience, provide original content and are not stolen from another source.

If your content is replicated or similar to other sites, it will harm your SEO. In the worst-case scenario, Google may not even index the identical page.

Furthermore, if you consistently post duplicate stuff, Google may limit the crawl rate on your page.

So, while developing content, make it unique and superior to other websites ranking for your selected search phrase. Of course, the search words for which you wish to rank should correspond to your emphasis keywords. 

Up to Date and Fresh Content

Another strategy to improve the quality of your content is to keep it fresh and up to date. Google prefers fresher material, whether it is newly published or has been fully updated.

When you update your content and add new articles regularly, you provide favorable ranking signals to search engines.

Covering issues that incorporate news or trends makes content freshness even more important. Google favors sites that give up-to-date information on such issues.

Content-Length

Content length is a simple ranking factor to measure and interpret. Another simple rule to remember is that longer is typically better.

According to many studies, the length of your content significantly influences where you rank in search results. Posts in the top ten rankings on Google search have an average of 1,890 words.

Regardless of the average, there is no such thing as writing the “perfect” amount of words. The perfect length for every piece of content is determined by the reader’s objective and the topic matter.

A better strategy is to generate in-depth content that comprehensively covers a subject. It is because Google emphasizes content that completely answers consumers’ requests and gives extensive solutions.

Content Structure and Organization

Your blog articles and pages should be neatly organized and structured as part of the content quality. It allows users to read your site’s information and discover answers to their requirements and issues more easily.

You should utilize numerous headings and subheadings (H2, H3, H4, and so on) to arrange your thoughts and subjects to enhance the structure and organization of your articles.

To make content easy to read, utilize bulleted and numbered lists. If your keywords match a search query, Google may choose these lists and display them as highlighted snippets.

Working on the structure and arrangement of the content may assist in increasing its readability. Consequently, you’ll boost user engagement on your site, which has a favorable impact on Google ranking elements.

Image Optimization

It is significant because of Google image search and because ordinary search results are becoming more visual, particularly on mobile. Here’s how to SEO-optimize your images:

 • Assign Alt Text:

It is the only method for Google to “see” a picture in text form. Include the keyword and keep it brief yet detailed. It also makes your website accessible to visually challenged users who use screen readers to navigate the internet, and it will display if an image fails to load.

• Compress And Resize:

Use an image compressor to minimize picture file sizes to 70-100KB or below. Saving as JPG rather than PNG is often beneficial. Furthermore, photos should rarely be wider than 1,000px. Even though a responsive site will automatically resize the pictures, the fewer server calls your site has to make, the faster it will load.

• Add Value:

Avoid utilizing empty stock photos and graphics in your blog articles as much as possible, and instead utilize screenshots, examples, charts, and drawings to demonstrate ideas. It increases the quality of the material and keeps viewers interested for a longer period. 

• Include The Keyword:

Also, in the file’s name, not simply the alt text. And, in the file name, replace spaces with dashes; otherwise, your CMS will replace them with “%20,” resulting in an untrustworthy-looking picture link.

 Mobile Friendliness

In March 2021, mobile-first indexing was completely accomplished. It’s been a long, hard process since it began in 2017. In a nutshell, mobile-first indexing is how Google crawls your website. If you have a distinct mobile website, its URL will be crawled and utilized for ranking rather than the desktop version.

To be clear, no distinct mobile-first index exists. Google crawls and ranks stuff from your site’s mobile edition. Also, do not mistake the mobile-first index for mobile usability. Let’s have a look at the differences in mobile usability.

Do you remember when having a m.URL.com mobile site was the standard? While it is not always harmful, more websites are shifting away from this mobile website strategy to construct responsive websites.

While Google doesn’t officially support any one mobile website type (responsive, dynamic, or different URLs) for rankings, they support responsiveness.

Google claims that responsive design helps their engines appropriately assign indexing attributes to the website without signaling the presence of desktop/mobile pages.

Your mobile website is the lifeline of your SERP presence in the era of the mobile-first index. To remain alive, adhere to Google’s standards and ensure your content is consistent on desktop and mobile.

While mobile responsive layouts are not essential for mobile-first indexing, you should optimize them for improved page experience and, as a result, rankings. Make it simple for search engines to enhance their results wherever possible!

Keyword Optimization

Aside from publishing original content and obtaining backlinks, the usage of keywords on websites is a well-known ranking criterion.

Keywords should correspond to the search keywords entered into search engines by users. As a result, it’s critical that your websites include the terms your audience is looking for, as well as match their search intent, and that you check your keyword rankings. It allows Google to include your page in its search results.

Here are a few pointers to help you optimize your website for keywords:

• Title Tags:

Include your goal term in the SEO title tags of your content.

• Meta Description:

Write compelling meta descriptions and include your target keyword so that readers understand what your page is about and click on it. 

• Image Alt Text:

Because Google cannot read photos, you may use keywords in the image alt text box to describe what the image is about. 

• Anchor Text:

Because Google utilizes anchor text to determine what the website is about, you may use your keywords as anchor text when connecting your sites. 

• Use LSI Keywords:

Although your website may concentrate on a single major keyword, you will discover that visitors look for various related terms.

These additional keywords are known as LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords. LSI keywords assist Google in determining what your content is about even more accurately. These terms also signify to Google that you have fully covered a subject.

• Avoid Keyword Stuffing:

Keyword optimization does not imply repeatedly using your core search phrase. It is known as keyword stuffing and is not a good SEO technique. Include your target keyword many times and mix in variants and supplementary keywords. 

• Include Keywords in H2 and H3:

You may further optimize your content by adding keyword variants and LSI keywords in your post’s H2 and H3 subheadings.

• Add Keyword in URL:

Your major keyword should be included in the site’s URL. So, for an instructional post titled “How to Beat Donkey Kong,” the URL may be something like

Website Security

That is a URL that Google’s crawlers can easily access and crawl. Google must visit the URL and read the page content to identify the website’s purpose. You’ll need the following to assist the bots:

• A website built using a well-coded website builder
• A robots.txt file that instructs Google where it may and cannot seek information about your site.
• A sitemap that contains a list of all your pages

You may use All in One SEO to create a sitemap if you have a WordPress website. If not, an online sitemap generator may be used.

Although HTTPS is not one of Google website ranking factors in determining whether or not to crawl a website, Google’s own John Mueller has tweeted that it is a “light-weight ranking factor” and that “having HTTPS is great for users.” Digitalmediarun agrees.

If you haven’t already, activate SSL security on your website.

Core Web Vitals

These are comparable to physiological parameters in humans, thus the name. The Core Web Vitals are a critical subset of Web Vitals. Every website on the internet should follow these guidelines.

Essential Web Metrics are a quick and easy approach to assess a site’s efficacy and learn about visitors’ experiences. Core Web Vitals consists of three major indicators: 

LCP:

A metric known as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time it takes to load the page’s principal content. According to Google, LCP load times of less than 2.5 seconds are acceptable; those between 2.5 and 4 seconds demand improvement, and those over 4 seconds are poor. 

FID:

The time it takes for the browser to process the first input after loading the page is known as the First Input Delay (FID). If the FID is under 100 milliseconds, everything is okay to go; if it’s between 100 and 300 milliseconds, there’s room for improvement; and if it’s beyond 300 milliseconds, things aren’t looking good. 

CLS:

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is a metric that measures the stability of a webpage’s visual design after user interaction.

It reveals how frequently and radically the website’s layout changes without the user’s awareness or agreement, such as when a button’s placement changes without scrolling. A lower CLS is preferred in this scenario.

Anything less than 0.1 is deemed outstanding by Google, while anything more than 0.25 is considered defective; there is room for improvement.

Domain Authority

Your website’s domain authority (DA) is the next ranking factor you should focus on. It is a statistic that ranks your site’s competence on a certain issue and its potential to rank in search engines.

The SEO business Moz created domain authority, which provides a score between 1 and 100. The greater your domain authority, the more likely you are to rank on Google for keywords relating to your areas of expertise.

Of course, there are other methods for increasing your website’s authority. One method is to get high-quality backlinks. However, having a large number of backlinks does not ensure better ranks.

You must generate fantastic content centered on your industry or primary topic. Also, keep your website and blog material focused on a single key theme.

Use a service like MonsterInsights, the finest Google Analytics WordPress plugin, to determine which topics most appeal to your site visitors. It displays accurate information about your website’s most popular pages.

Then, to improve your subject authority, you may generate additional high-quality material on comparable concepts.

Finally, Google will perceive your site as an expert in your subject, which increases your domain authority and should result in a higher ranking in search results. 

User Experience (RankBrain)

For quite some time, Google has been utilizing artificial intelligence to improve web page ranking. It refers to this signal as RankBrain. Other indications that influence your search engine ranking are included. These are some scenarios:

• Click-through rate: the proportion of users who visit your site after seeing an item in search results.
• Bounce rate (particularly pogo-sticking): the percentage of users visiting your website and immediately returning to the search results.
• Dwell time: the time visitors remain on your site after arriving.

If consumers visit your site, don’t like it, and leave, Google will believe it is irrelevant to their requirements. If many individuals do this, your site may become more difficult to rank higher in search results.

It signifies that your content must be relevant to the searcher’s objective. You should return to a more effective keyword.

In contrast, if users visit your website and stay for a time, Google knows your material is relevant to their search.

By optimizing titles, descriptions, and content to attract clicks while still providing value on the other end, you can improve your search engine rating. 

Website Loading Speed

Page load times are an important component among Google’s hundreds of ranking factors. That’s because Google included page loading speed to its Core Web Vitals in May 2021.

Google views website speed to be crucial for user experience on your site. It assesses your website’s overall speed and responsiveness and the loading time of other components, such as fonts and photos.

The aim isn’t to outperform your competition by shaving milliseconds off your load time. It’s more about meeting a bare minimum for page loading speed.

Google wants your website to load fast and offer visitors a positive user experience. You may use any Site performance report to test your WordPress website’s loading performance.

It will assess your website, provide a score for mobile and desktop, present key information concerning page load times, and highlight solutions to improve your site even quicker.

For example, a CDN (content delivery network) may help your WordPress website load faster. CDNs may reduce the time it takes for your content to load for users all over the globe.

Links (Backlinks, Outbound and Internal)

As we said before, the web thrives on links. Links are, thus, an important SEO ranking indication. There are three types of linkages to consider:

• Inbound links
• Outbound links
• Internal links

Typically, all three are linked to a descriptive anchor text. 

Inbound Links

Google utilizes incoming links to gauge the authority and relevancy of your content.

The ideal situation is for a respected site to add a relevant link to yours in one of their articles. As a result, if the Content Marketing Institute connects to your content marketing resource, it will be seen more favorably than if a random individual with a low-quality site links to it.

Inbound links are sometimes referred to as “backlinks.” You want as many credible sources to connect to you as possible. It also implies that you should have very few inbound links from low-quality sites.

Outbound Links

At the same time, you want to demonstrate that you are producing high-quality material for your viewers. Outbound links connect to relevant, authoritative sites in your area.

To increase your authority, should you distribute many outbound links? Certainly not.

It implies that you should only choose credible sources with high domain authority while doing research. You should probably be doing this anyway for the benefit of your consumers to ensure you deliver the maximum value.

Internal Links

Finally, connecting to your content helps connect pages for both Google and visitors, increasing the value of each page. To pass on credibility and drive traffic, have an authoritative page link to another page on your site.

It aids the second page’s search engine ranking. Generate a sturdy network of internal links as you generate new material so that your pages may support one another. Also, remember what we mentioned at the beginning of this section:

The anchor text for all three kinds of links is descriptive. A link in your article is only as good as your wording describing its destination.

To expedite the internal linking procedure, utilize All in One SEO’s Link Assistant plugin. It will auto-create a link report for your site that includes the following information:

• Linking options: Suggestions for relevant sites to link to and anchor text to utilize.
• Orphaned posts: Any pages/posts on your site that lack internal links.

AIOSEO’s internal linking advice may be applied with a single click rather than individually changing each article. 

Conclusion

SEO has a significant influence on business. Google’s search algorithm is built on ranking parameters that promote high-quality content and a positive user experience. Google is also improving its ability to track how consumers engage with material.

Understanding the main Google ranking variables may make or break your online marketing plan; learn the fundamentals and watch for adjustments, and you’ll be well on your way to success.