What are the Google ranking factors for SEO?

Not all the Google ranking factors for SEO completely depend on your content. But if you are giving it your best effort, here’s a list. While not complete as of the date of this post, the most important ones we’ve observed across various websites.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Essential factors to consider

It’s not difficult to do these things, but it is incredibly time-consuming.

• A Secure and accessible website. SSL (HTTPS).
• Speed of loading pages.
• Mobile Responsiveness (must be friendly).
• Domain Age, URL, and Authority.
• They are optimized for the quality of the content.
• User experience (UX) quality of the website.
• Backlinks.

What does Google have to say about this?

To give you the most useful information, Search algorithms look at many factors and signals, including the words of your query, relevance and usability of pages, expertise of sources, and your location and settings. The weight applied to each factor varies depending on the nature of your query. For example, the freshness of the content plays a bigger role in answering queries about current news topics than it does about dictionary definitions.

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/

Are you focusing on your users or Google bot?

These are things that are done on and off of your website’s pages and content.

Take a look at your social media profiles or other listing websites you are on. Do the descriptions and about sections accurately describe you and your business? Your contact page information should match information found elsewhere on the web.

How is your content organized? Do you have your blog, for example, correctly organized by category? Can I find a particular piece of content by searching?

Each website has organization to it. We call it your site’s content architecture. It does include your sitemap and any pages linked in your navigation or other menus.

Have terms and privacy policy pages.

WordPress generates one, but we recommend an excellent lawyer to help write these.

Duplicate meta descriptions – Don’t!

Duplicate content has always been harmful, but if you have the same paragraphs of content on other pages, you could risk that page (or pages) not being indexed. That is NOT listed on the search engine.

Breadcrumbs

Users are not detectives. You never want them to assume where they are on your pages. You’ll see breadcrumbs on e-commerce websites as they have “Store > Product Category > Product” to help you have a good experience on the site. This creates a more likelihood of return visits.

Domain signals

Different than ranking but worth noting. Think about the registration length of your domain – How long have you paid to renew your domain? One year, 2? Make it 5 to tell Google you’re here to stay.

Public vs. Private Whois – Go public since it matters for your contact page. It’s up to you; however, privacy is up to the individual.

Brand signals

This is when someone Googles your business’s name – that’s a simplistic answer, but you can read about Branded Search results here.

1. Brand name Anchor text – are your links containing your brand’s name? That only makes sense. It should be whenever you can.
2. Check your Brand + Keyword searches – NerdBrand + Web Design or NerdBrand + Branding Services.
3. Official LinkedIn Company page – You have to have this and be updating it.
4. Google Business Profile – Many think they have one but realize later it was autogenerated, or they don’t. It’s so important to have this today. Yet it’s the most overlooked piece of optimization on the web for businesses.

To sum up, these are the things Google recommends:

• Meaning of your query
• Relevance of content
• Quality of content
• Usability of webpages
• Context and settings

Read more at https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/

If you’re thinking about a marketing or SEO strategy for your business, contact us to brainstorm on your system. We’ll brainstorm with you for free, then with your budget and goals clear, and we’ll execute that strategy.