Search Engine Ranking Factors

Search Engine Ranking Factors

SERF

Here are the foremost important ranking signals in Google’s algorithm immediately (in 2019).

1. Content Quality
Quality content is that the ultimate ranking factor.

You can have a site that’s perfectly optimized for SEO. But if your content stinks, it simply won’t rank.

The question is:

When it involves SEO, what does “quality content” look like?

Thorough

Google wants content that completely answers someones query.

That’s probably why one industry study found that longer content ranks above short content:

Longer content ranks above shorter content
So confirm that your content is thorough and complete.

Useful

In other words:

Does your content satisfy what a user wanted once they decided to try to to a Google search?

For example, let’s say you look for “Crossfit exercises”.

A post that lists 17 Crossfit exercises is far more useful than an opinion piece about why Crossfit exercises are great for weight loss.

Make your content useful
So confirm your content is insanely useful.

Structured

Last up, SEO-friendly content is highly-structured.

Why is that this important?

First, well-structured content is straightforward to read. which suggests that users can get the solution to their question faster.

Second, organizing your content into sections helps Google understand what your content is all about.

Well-structured content ranks higher
So confirm your content is structured and well-organized.

2. Content Uniqueness
It’s one thing to possess an excellent piece of thorough, useful and structured content.

But if it regurgitates information that’s already out there, it’s probably not getting to rank well.

(After all, Google has content with an equivalent information in its index already. Why would they rank yours above it?)

That’s why your stuff must vary or better than the content on page 1.

When you do this , you’ll have an enormous leg abreast of the competition.

For example, once I published this guide to voice search, there was nothing else remotely love it on the web:

Optimize for Voice Search – Post
And because my content provided value that no other content did, it began to rank for on the primary page of Google for competitive keywords (like “voice search) within a couple of weeks:

Google SERPs – "voice search"
3. Fully Crawlable Page
If you would like to rank, it’s vital that search engines can fully crawl and index the content on your page.

In other words:

If search engines are blocked from accessing the page (for example, from Robots.txt), they won’t index the page in the least .

Blocked access noindexing
And if they can’t access certain parts of your page, that’s getting to hurt your program visibility too.

Poor accessibility lowers visibility
You can easily check if your page is fully accessible to look engines using the “URL Inspection” feature within the Google Search Console:

URL inspection feature – Google Search Console
4. Mobile Optimized Site
Google has said that:

“Mobile pages that provide a poor searcher experience are often demoted in rankings or displayed with a warning in mobile search results.”

In other words:

To rank in 2019, your site must work well on any device.

(Desktops, phones, tablets and TVs)

Fortunately, Google has created a nifty free tool called the “Mobile-Friendly Test”.

Mobile-Friendly Test
It tells you whether or not your page is optimized for mobile…

…with specific recommendations on fixing it.

Mobile-Friendly Test – Results
5. Number of Backlinks
A backlink is sort of a vote from another website.

What are backlinks
Search engines like Bing and Google measure these votes. and that they use them to work out which pages need to rank within the top 10.

For example, this page on my site has 5,900 total backlinks:

Ahrefs total backlinks
Which has helped it climb the rankings for my target keyword: “on-page SEO”.

On-page SEO – SERPs
The bottom line?

The more backlinks a page gets, the higher it'll rank in search engines.

Number of backlinks
6. Domain Authority
A link pointing on to a page will help that page rank better.

Direct links help rankings
But these links also help boost your site’s overall Domain Authority, which is your site’s authority as an entire .

Direct links improve domain authority
And the higher your Domain Authority, the higher all of the pages on your site will rank.

Higher Domain Authority, better overall rankings
The best thanks to boost your Domain Authority is to make an awesome site.

7. Anchor Text
Google uses anchor text to work out what a page is about.

What are anchor links
For example, someone recently linked to my site with the anchor text: “backlinks”

Link to Backlinko with anchor text backlinks
This anchor text tells Google: “Other people are linking to the present page with ‘backlinks’ anchor text. This page must be about backlinks.”

8. Site Loading Speed
Your site’s loading speed may be a vital ranking factor.

(Especially how quickly your page loads on mobile devices)

In fact, Google has even begin and said that “page speed may be a ranking factor for mobile searches.”

9. Keyword Usage
I’m getting to sound like Captain Obvious here, but stick with me:

If you would like to rank for a keyword, you would like to use that keyword on your page.

Use keywords you would like to rank for
Otherwise, Google won’t know that your page is that keyword.

For example, here’s a page on my site optimized around “link building”

Link Building post with "link building" keyword highlight
As you'll see, i exploit the keyword “link building”, a couple of times in my content.

(I should also means that I don’t go overboard and use my keyword 100 times. That’s called “keyword stuffing”, which may work against your SEO efforts).

Another thing to stay in mind:

You don’t got to use your exact keyword whenever . In fact, it’s smart to incorporate variations of your main keyword in your content.

For example, if your keyword is “Paleo Desserts”, you’d also want to use terms like “Paleo Diet Desserts” and “Paleo Cookies”:

Include variations of main keywords
10. Google RankBrain
RankBrain is that the AI a part of Google’s algorithm.

How important is RankBrain?

Well, Google has confirmed that RankBrain is one among their “top 3” ranking factors:

RankBrain is one among Google
RankBrain’s main job is to work out what a searcher wants… and serve them up the simplest results for that search.

Because RankBrain may be a machine learning algorithm, it’s constantly changing. Which makes it tricky to optimize for.

So my advice is this:

The best thanks to “optimize” for RankBrain is to make awesome content that creates searchers happy.

11. Search Intent Match
Does your content match what a searcher wants at that specific moment?

If so, you’re getting to end up with a huge rankings boost.

That’s because Google is trying to downgrade traditional ranking factors (like keywords and links) in favor of ranking factors that answer the question: “Does this content give the searcher what they were looking for?”.

In fact, Google employs thousands of “Quality Raters” to live how well the search results satisfy search intent.

Google quality raters
How about an example?

Let’s say you only did an enquiry for “link building”.

Google closely monitors how you interact with the search results.

For example, if you click from the primary results — and quickly bounces back to the search results — that’s a robust sign that the result didn’t cause you to happy.

Pogosticking SEO
(The act of bouncing round the results is named “Pogosticking”)

But if you click on a result and obtain exactly what you were trying to find , Google will push that result to the highest .

Rankings improve if the chosen result satisfies the user
12. Content Freshness
Google doesn't want to rank out of date stuff.

That’s why you would possibly have noticed that fresh content gets a short lived rankings boost:

Brand new content gets a short lived boost
(Usually for day or two)

That said, “Freshness” remains important weeks or months after your content goes live.

Specifically, Google wants to ascertain that your content remains relevant and up so far .

For example, let’s say you only published a huge iPhone buying guide.

Google improves ranking of up-to-date content
Well, unless you update that content on a daily basis, it’s going get out of date REALLY quickly.

Google measures freshness directly (they check to ascertain if the content has been updated since you published it… and the way often.)

But they also use User Experience Signals to ascertain if people start interacting together with your content differently (for example, they notice people start bouncing from the page right away).

That’s why it’s important that you simply regularly update your content to stay it fresh.

For example, I update almost every page on my site a minimum of once per annum .

Backlinko post – Last updated
But albeit you’re not during a fast-changing industry like SEO, I still recommend updating your content once per annum to stay it fresh within the eyes of Google (and users).

13. E-A-T
Google’s newest Search Quality Guidelines state:

“…the amount of experience , authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T)
is very important”.

In other words:

Google wants to market content written by legit experts thereon topic.

Here are 3 quick tips to assist you optimize for E-A-T.

Identify Authors

Make it easy for Google to understand WHO wrote a specific piece of content.

by Brian Dean
And whenever possible, hire or work with well-respected experts in your field.

Be Transparent

Make sure that users can easily contact you (using a contact form or email address).

Reputation Matters

Google’s quality raters are instructed to seem at a site’s off-site reputation.

Google Quality Raters check out a site
In other words: