Most of us, when we want to know about a product or answer a specific question, what do we do? We Google it !! We know that Google shows the best-searched results for our query and displays. Most of us do not tend to go past the first page of search results.
The SEO industry is evolving every day, and so are Google’s algorithms which keep regularly changing to meet the user’s needs, help to decide where, when, and how to index the right URLs, and show the most relevant information to the users.
Table of Contents
Let’s check some of the best Google Search ranking factors
Quality of the Content
Content is king when written for blogs, articles, snippets, etc. It covers a wider area related to the topics. Quality content is not just about writing on a specific topic but also includes visual content that helps complement your written content. It will provide a better engaging value to the users when you believe in quality work than quantity. Do not worry about the word count; write what is right and stick to the topic.
Length of the Content
How long content can be is not clearly stated till today. There is no optimal limit to the word count for an article as each article is related to a different subject. But, one thing is that longer and quality content always achieves higher rankings. When you write content, keep in mind the correlation between content length and Google search positions.
It is always good to take the help of a tool while writing content. Try to use Google’s Semantic search, which helps to optimize keyword targeting in articles. These search results are displayed at the bottom of the Google search results page.
E-A-T and Information Accuracy
E-A-T might not act as a direct ranking factor, but it is very important while writing certain articles on health or finance. When writing such content, you must be very careful about providing the right information and scientific consensus. If you are writing about a person’s health, provide the correct details through trustworthy sources.
The content should help reach the person, along with their contact details.
Rankbrain Signal
RankBrain helps Google provide the most relevant and useful results by better understanding the user intent behind a search query. It uses machine learning to understand complex searches and their relatedness to particular topics while considering how the user behaves towards the exact set of search results.
Using Google’s Freshness algorithm
The Google Freshness Algorithm is one of the most powerful ranking signals in Google search. If you’re a publisher with a lot of old content, like we are talking about at least 2-3 years old, that does not rank, updating old articles could be huge for your SEO strategy. Google gives more chances to display new materials and makes sure that at least some of the SERP features are up to date.
Strong Backlinks
Penguin 4.0 update helps to check and filter out low-quality backlink profiles. We know that backlinks are the backbone for ranking signals in Google’s search algorithm. It would help if you had many links from various high-quality domains to increase the chances of ranking the keywords. While marketing online, you need to consider the backlinks you have in your profile.
Bad links in sites have been an issue. Google is now labeling these as spam, and brands are getting hit hard with lost rankings. By marking commercial links, you’ll also help Google better understand your content and rank you higher in SERPs for relevant search queries.
Brand Searches
Most users search for various brands online, and each time we surf our favorite brand, it sends strong signals to Google’s search algorithm stating that a specific website is getting more traffic from branded searches. In addition, high signals from social media such as Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter, and various other media platforms increase the search rankings. Of course, a strong online presence will not increase your value, but when combined with brand power and social signals, that will pay off with great search visibility.
Power of Domain
Domain names have a good influence on increasing search results. You must use an exact match to boost organic search visibility. We have two domain power:
Exact Match Domains
They carry a lot of importance. For example, let’s search for “baking”, and we expect to see popular baking-related brands as top search results. But, what we see is an exact match, “baking.com”.
Domain age
It is another ranking factor, as the existence of new domains takes a lot of time to rank higher for selected keywords.
Local SEO
Google has updated the factors that determine local search results. For example, when searching for local businesses, results are listed in relevance to the user, prominence on the page, and distance to the user. Unfortunately, they haven’t provided any details on how these factors will change this new update.
Update on Product Review
Product reviews of high quality are considered a good ranking factor when it comes to local SEO. Google keeps updating the algorithms, and let’s see some of the best review practices:
Provides the users to choose from various sellers of their choice while purchasing.
Providing visuals or audio of users’ experiences with the products gives more importance to real reviews.
Displaying the quality and quantity of the products compared with other brands in terms of performance measurements.
Technical SEO Ranking Factors
User experience
User experience is difficult to measure, but you will probably rank better if your site is functional. SERP’s core Web Vitals metrics cover some of the influence of UX. Accurate User Experience can be measured by conversion rate and conversions. We see a strong correlation between an accurate UI/UX and good placements on the SERP.
Google Page Experience Signals
Core Web Vitals
This change by Google boosts sites with fast page speeds, good loading, interactivity, and visual stability.
Page Speed
People use their mobiles more than their desktops for searching their products as it is easy to surf. The website’s speed must not be slow, or it will have a hard time ranking at the top of the search results. You have tools such as the Pagespeed Insight tool that can help to improve your page speed in a better way.
Mobile Friendliness
Mobile-first indexing focuses on providing the best search experience to users on mobile devices. At the beginning of its release, Google’s mobile-first approach changed search results, especially when it came to local results. However, after the update, users began receiving results that better targeted their current locations and improved local search results on the desktop.
HTTPS
The HTTPS protocol has been shown to help improve search rankings and is now a top priority for Google. We invest a lot to ensure that our services use industry-leading security, like strong HTTPS encryption by default which means that people using Google Search, Gmail, and Google Drive, for example, automatically have a secure connection to Google.
Schema Markup
Achieve a higher ranking on Google; this is important to keep in mind. Search engines can understand specific texts better through schema markups such as recipes, reviews, FAQs, events, job postings, and more.
Applying schema code to the complete site is recommended as it benefits the search appearance. In addition, it helps to increase site visitors.
Conclusion
Businesses benefit greatly from SEO. Using Google’s search algorithm, Google strives to ensure that users experience great search results and high-quality content. It is also improving its ability to measure how users interact with content. You can succeed in your online marketing strategy or fail if you don’t know the Google ranking factors; learn the basics, keep your eyes out for updates, and you’ve got a good chance.
For more details, contact Ahbiv Digital Agency; we are here to provide you with more information.
