Google Ranking Factors, SEO Ranking factors, Google Page Rank, Google Website Ranking, Core Web Vitals Ranking Factor, ranking factor in seo, ranking factors of google
The Google search engine has become smarter than ever. If you want to take your website or blog to the top of Google search results, then you have to follow the latest SEO and Google ranking factors.
However, when Google ranks a page, it uses many ranking factors. In this article, I have made a list of Top Google Ranking Factors, by reading which you can easily increase your website traffic and ranking.
Google Ranking Factors – SEO Ranking Factors
1 Quality Content
This is the most important factor (Key) in Google Ranking Factors. No matter how well you do SEO or why, your content will not be able to rank in Google.
Simply put, if you don’t write informative blog posts on your site, you are dumping garbage on your blog and nothing more.
Always try to write unique and quality content. In addition, your content should be interesting and evergreen.
2 Content Length
Long content ranks better in search engines than short content.
If you write short posts, then your content length should be at least 1000 words.
Apart from this, there are many benefits of long blog post. You can optimize your focus keyword well, visitors will stay on your site longer.
3 Keyword Research
Along with good content, you should also come across keyword research. Without keyword research you cannot get top rank in Google or any search engine. This is an important part of SEO.
Keyword research is not a difficult task. There are many great tools and websites that you can use to find the best keywords. Always choose Low Competition, High Searches and Long Tail Keyword for your content.
4 Keyword Density
Use keywords in the right place in your content. Using more keywords is called keyword stuffing. And can hurt your ranking.
Keyword stuffing makes your content unnatural and creates a bad experience for the reader. Keep keyword density 1.5% – 2% in your content.
5 Long Tail Keywords
When you optimize your site with long-tail keywords, you can get good results and the competition on such keywords is also very less.
There are many benefits to using long-tail keywords:
- Easy to rank
- Helps in getting Target traffic
- Gives Better Conversion Rate
- Long Tail Keywords also help you to rank on Short Tail Keywords
- Are Perfect For Competitive Niches
- It is easy to optimize
6 Use LSI Keywords
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) is like Long-Tail Keywords. It helps to understand the content better.
Also, use LSI keywords in title and description. Put keywords in the first 100 words of the page
Add your focus keyword once in 100 words at the beginning of the article. It helps Google to understand your content better.
Start title with keyword
According to SEO, the title starting with the keyword ranks better in the search engines. Also, make your title catchy. And use 50–60 characters in that.
7 Website should be HTTPS
Google announced in August 2014 that HTTPS (SSL Certificate) would be considered a ranking factor.
In August 2017, Google Chrome began marking sites that are not using HTTPS as Insecure.
So it indicates that Google is now using HTTPS as a ranking factor ur sites that use HTTPS will rank well in search engines.
8 Mobile-Friendliness
Today is the era of smartphones, and more than half of all searches are done through smartphones.
Therefore, Google took the first step to improve mobile-friendly search results. And finally offered mobile-friendliness as Google ranking factors.
Google has also developed a mobile-friendly testing tool to determine whether your site is mobile-friendly in the eyes of Google.
9 Domain Age
Google’s Matt Cutts has confirmed in this video.
Matt Cutts says
The difference between a domain that’s six months old versus one year old is really not that big at all.
Domain age is only observed for new websites as they may also be spam sites or are developed to spread spam.
10 Domain Registration Length
A Google patent states that
Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains are rarely used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain
11 Heading Tags
The H1 tag helps search engines find out what your page or post is about.
However, Googler John Mueller tells about H2, H3 Tags
These heading tags in HTML help us to understand the structure of the page.
Well H1 tags help to boost your Google ranking. But keep in mind that do not fill your entire content with H1 tags.
12 Loading Speed
Google uses website loading speed as Google ranking factors to give better user experience to its users. If the loading speed of your site is very good, then Google will rank your content at the top.
Quick tips to improve website loading speed:
- upgrade to PHP 7.2
- Optimize your image size
- Keep only useful plugins
- Delete unwanted media
- Minify CSS and JS Files
- Use a good Cache plugin
- Minimize Redirects
- Use Lightweight theme
- use a CDN
- use good web hosting
13 Number of Comments
We can consider comments as the key to Google ranking factor. Since many comments reflect the quality of your content and user-interaction.
Gary Illyes commented on Twitter that a lot of comments can help you boost the ranking.
14 Breadcrumb
Breadcrumb helps users to know where they are on your site as well as help search engines understand the structure of your site.
Furthermore, Google has stated that,
Google Search uses breadcrumb markup in the body of a web page to categorize the information from the page in search results.
15 SEO Friendly URLs
Search engines use your content’s title, meta description and URL to determine what the content is about. Make your URLs short and meaningful. Also don’t forget to add target keyword to it.
Always Use SEO Friendly URLs
Google Ranking Factors – SEO Ranking factors for Blog/Website
Quick Tips to Create SEO Friendly URLs:
- Use Keywords in your URL
- Use Hyphen (-) for Words Separately
- Keep Your URL Short
- Do not use multiple folders/category in your URL
- Remove Stop Words
- Do not use hash (#) in URLs
Use the Best Permalink Structure
If you are a WordPress user, then you need to pay attention to this. The default URL structure of WordPress is not SEO friendly and it looks something like this.
https://domain.com/?p=123
But don’t worry, you can easily change it. Just click on Settings >> Permalinks option and select “Post name”.
16 Backlinks
Backlinks are a very old Google ranking factor that Google uses to rank any content. Backlinks can make a big difference in your Google search ranking. It can take your ranking to a new high or bring it down overnight.
Backlinks are very important to increase domain authority, Google website ranking, and website traffic.
If you create bad backlinks for your site, then these backlinks can badly hurt your website ranking. So always make high-quality backlinks for your website or blog.
17 Meta Description
Meta description is not technically a Google ranking factor. But it plays an important role in increasing the Click Through Rate (CTR) on your content.
However, Google generally allows 300 characters for meta descriptions.
18 Starts Title with Keyword
According to SEO, a title that starts with the keyword ranks better in search engines. Also, the length of the title should be 50-60 characters.
19 Use ALT Tag
Google does not have the ability to read images, crawls the Alt tag to find out what the image is about. That’s why you should use the name Meangful in your image.
Alt text works as anchor text for images. Here is a guide – Image Optimize Kaise Kare (Ultimate SEO Guide)
20 Grammar and Spelling
Does proper grammar and spelling improve the quality of your article? Matt Cutts has a video on this which is telling whether it is important or not.
21 Use Media
If you use media (images, videos, and infographics) in your content, it makes your content even more useful and engaging.
Simply put, a media can explain 1000 words.
22 Regular Post
If you publish posts on your blog regularly, then both your ranking and readership will increase. But your content should be informative and useful.
23 Internal Links
Internal linking provides relevant information about your content to both search engines and users.
If you use internal linking, it makes your post even more informative. In addition, visitors spend more time on your site which reduces the bounce rate. Also, Google considers your content as quality content.
24 Use AMP
Publishing posts on blog regularly can increase both your ranking and readership. But your content should be informative and useful.
use AMP
Many SEO experts believe that AMP is the Google ranking factor and many believe that it is not.
The full name of AMP is Accelerated Mobile Pages. It is optimized for mobile page which loads very fast in mobile.
It makes your page mobile-friendly and fast (web page loads in less than a second).
25 Use Rel=Canonical
Rel=canonical is called “canonical link” which helps to prevent duplicate content issues.
When the rel=canonical tag is used properly, you can save your site from Google penalties for duplicate content.
26 Fix Broken Links on Your Site
Broken Links problem comes when you move or delete any page of your website.
If your site has a lot of broken links, Google will crawl your site slowly. This affects both your site ranking and user experience.
27 Set Nofollow Tag for Affiliate Links
Affiliate Links do not hurt your ranking. But if you have too many affiliate links on your blog, then it can hurt your ranking.
Always set rel=”nofollow” tag for Affiliate Links. If you use a plugin to manage your affiliate links, you can easily set up a Nofollow tag for them.
28 Domain Authority
Domain Authority reflects the reputation of your site. Higher domain authority sites get a better rank in search results.
It is scored on a scale of 1 to 100. You can use Moz’s free tool – Open Site Explorer, to view your site’s DA.
29 Submit Sitemap
Sitemaps help Google to better crawl and index your website. And also helps to understand your website structure easily.
30 Site Uptime
If your site is in downtime most of the time, it can hurt your ranking. Even Google can deindex your site.
So buy hosting from a good company which gives 99.99% uptime.
31 Site Usability
Keep your site simple and clean so that users can navigate easily. A site that is difficult to navigate will have a higher bounce rate and may indirectly hurt rankings.
32 External Linking
External links can be beneficial for SEO. But always link with reputed domains.
33 Bounce Rate
Not everyone believes that the bounce rate is one of the Google ranking factors. But it tells Google about the quality of your site.
If your site has a high bounce rate, then your ranking in search engines (SERPs) will not be good.
34 Sneaky Redirects
This technique is used in Black Hat SEO. In this, search engines see one thing and visitors see another.
This violates the Google search engine guidelines. If you are caught, your site could be penalized or de-indexed.
35 Spinning Content
This is similar to copying content. Many users spin the content of popular blogs using third-party tools or websites.
Google hates such content. And if Google suspects that your content is Spinning, it may result in penalties or de-indexing.
36 Popups
Too many popup ads distract the reader’s attention. A site with a lot of pop up ads will be considered a low-quality site.
High % of Low-Quality Links
If you have a lot of low-quality links in your link profile, you run the risk of a Google penalty.
Low-quality backlinks badly affect website ranking. Google can completely remove the website from the search result.
37 Use the Google Disavow Tool
Disavow Tool is used to remove bad backlinks or low-quality links. Just you need to create a text file and type bad backlinks which you want to delete.
Conclusion
If you have any thoughts or questions about Google Ranking Factors, then tell in the comment box. Subscribe to our blog to keep reading more such informational posts and to receive notifications about new blog posts.