What factors influence your content to rank on Google? I explain to you what are the positioning factors that intervene in the classifications.
Have you ever wondered what influences your position in search results? Google is the undisputed leader among search engines. It is no wonder that most website owners want to reach the TOP10 of organic results. Understanding Google ranking factors and optimizing your pages accordingly will help you achieve this. What should you pay attention to and what elements of the website should you modify to improve its position in the rankings?
Officially, Google has never made a list of factors public. However, on certain occasions, Google officials such as John Mueller, Danny Sullivan or Martin Splitt usually mention how important a very specific aspect is, in terms of the weight it has as a factor. Therefore, ranking factor lists are usually created by consensus among SEO professionals.
Table of Contents
What are Google positioning factors?
Simply put, ranking factors are elements that have some influence on a website’s position in search results and are taken into account by the search engine.
These signals help website owners determine what aspects to look out for and what actions to take.
Being able to meet Google’s requirements translates into better positions in search results and that can translate into more traffic.
When talking about ranking factors, it is crucial to mention that they refer to different aspects of the website, however, they can be grouped as follows:
- Factors directly related to the website and its elements;
- Factors related to various off-site activities, such as link building .
Implementing a substantial change to your website to ensure it meets Google standards can significantly improve your rankings and attract more visitors to the page, although Google will need time to reinterpret your site.
Why are ranking factors important?
Good positioning in search results is not possible if your website does not meet Google standards.
If you want to attract more visitors and improve your organic traffic, improving your page to ensure that it is aligned with Google’s positioning factors is the only way to achieve the goal.
The factors that influence positioning on Google.
Although it is very difficult to estimate the exact number of elements that influence your website’s position in search results, there are most likely a few dozen.
It’s also worth noting that Google regularly modifies its algorithms and systems to ensure it provides users with unique, high-quality results that meet their expectations.
Quality and unique content
Quality content is the first element you should focus on. To conquer the SERPs, you must create unique and valuable texts that position you as an expert in the field.
Don’t forget that EEAT (experience, knowledge, authority and reliability) is a powerful Google positioning factor .
Google rewards websites with unique and trustworthy content. Inspiring trust and describing topics in detail will help you rank higher.
On the other hand, make sure that your content corresponds to the search intent of the topic you are covering.
When users type queries like “best vacation spot with kids,” they are probably looking for advice. On the other hand, people searching for “iphone 15 pro max 64gb” are probably ready to buy the product and don’t need blog posts.
Creating content that is in line with search intent will help you retain users and keep the bounce rate low, which, on the other hand, is not a ranking factor.
In addition to making your content reliable and focused on search intent, you should also regularly publish new pieces or update existing entries.
Also Read: How Google Core Updates Affect Your SEO Positioning
Content ranking factors
It is no coincidence that the first factor I mention is content. It is without a doubt the factor on which all other factors must gravitate. That is why I would like to detail some of the components of this factor:
- QUALITY: Pages should be well written and of substantial quality.
- RESEARCH: Discover the keywords people can use to find your content.
- ANSWERS: Create content that can become answers in the SERPs.
- DEPTH: Superficial content fails. Aim for the substance.
- MULTIMEDIA: Images, videos and audios can differentiate your content.
- KEYWORDS: Include keywords on your pages.
- FRESHNESS: Create timely content; Update or remove stuck pages.
Keyword optimization
Once you create your content, it’s time to optimize it. This way you will show both Google and users which elements of your website are especially important and should be taken into account.
When conducting keyword research and selecting phrases you want to display for, it is essential to consider long-tail keywords that are in line with your business profile.
Why should you focus on them?
Generally speaking, they are less competitive, which means it will be easier for you to achieve higher positions in search results.
Imagine that you have a wine e-commerce. Optimizing your page for long-tail, product-specific phrases like “gift bottles of wine” will potentially net you fewer users, but these users will be interested in making the purchase. On the other hand, this way you can get a higher ranking for this specific keyword.
Likewise, optimizing content for generic keywords like “wine” or “give wine as a gift” won’t bring you many tangible benefits, especially if your store is not particularly large and has been in the world of e-commerce for a short time. Because? Well, in this case it is quite unfeasible to compete with brands like Amazon, or other majors in the market.
Once you select the keywords you want to optimize your website for, remember to place them in:
- metadata
- headers, URL
- link text
- content
Of course, don’t forget to always look for balance to achieve success. Using keywords in every sentence will lead to keyword stuffing. This may be viewed negatively by Google and may decrease your ranking position.
Also Read: Keyword Cannibalization: How to Avoid Internal Competition in SEO
Backlinks
Backlinks are another positioning factor . While analyzing a website, Google checks the value of the links pointing to it, and the quality of the referring domains, that is, the domains that link to your page.
Quality external links are a clear sign that your website content is a valuable source of knowledge that is voluntarily referenced. When creating your backlink database.
It is important to acquire links gradually, as an unnatural increase in the number of backlinks can be considered manipulation. Consequently, Google may penalize your page, which will have a counterproductive result.
When creating links, remember that Google has repeatedly implemented updates to its systems specifically aimed at demoting sites with excess spam links .
Internal links
Internal linking consists of building an internal link structure that improves website navigation and helps you create thematic groups. There are several types of internal links and numerous strategies you can use depending on your business goals.
Try to put yourself in the users’ shoes and think about what products or content they might be interested in if they have entered a specific page on your website.
Use internal links to keep users on your website for longer , while helping Google bots understand the structure of your website.
Remember that your internal links must have a proper URL structure. Addresses should be easy to use, short, and do not include special characters or capital letters.
Page Speed and Core Web Vitals
Websites that load in more than 2-3 seconds deter users and have a negative impact on bounce rate. In such a situation, people simply get impatient and leave the page.
Website loading speed and Core Web Vitals are important Google positioning factors, although Google has expressed that it can be a tie-breaking metric against the equality of other factors between different websites.
Mobile usability
Most of us surf the web on mobile devices while commuting to work, sitting in traffic jams, waiting for food in a restaurant, and much more. Google knows it.
Therefore, a responsive web design occupies a prominent place in optimization , allowing the rendering of the page to be displayed correctly on mobile phones or tablets.
In April 2018, Google introduced the Mobile First indexing system , with which Google only receives information from the mobile version of your site.
To rank highly, you must offer the same content on the mobile and desktop versions of your website.
Also Read: How to recover from a Google Core Update
Domain Authority
Your domain authority is still considered one of the most important Google ranking factors .
Domain authority (DA), a metric created by Moz that is used in the SEO world to evaluate and classify domains.
This is also where the confusion begins: some people use the term “domain authority” when talking about the concept of domain authority, while others use it primarily when talking about the metric. It is important to understand that domain authority is much more than a metric, and that it is a value that Google has repeatedly ignored .
“We don’t have a sign that we’ll say, ‘This is authority.’ “We have a lot of things that we hope all together will help increase the amount of authority in our results,” said Paul Haahr , one of the senior engineers at Google who is involved with search quality.
What are those things? In this case, Google does not provide details. The most he says is that he hopes that the set of factors he uses to arrive at an approach to authority really corresponds to the goal of making authoritative content more visible.
One of the ways it hopes to improve that mix is with feedback from the quality raters it employs, who recently received updated guidelines on how to flag low-quality web pages.
Well, precisely in the Guidelines for Quality Evaluators , where the concept of authority is closely linked to that of reputation.
Site architecture
In simple words, website architecture is how the content on your page is organized. If done correctly, both users and Googlebot can easily access all necessary pages and functions.
To improve navigation and architecture, you should implement breadcrumbs and structure all elements logically so that users can find what they are looking for.
Website Security
User security is crucial for Google. For this simple reason, websites that have a valid and properly implemented SSL certificate are rewarded by Google .
This certificate allows and confirms the secure connection between a web server and a browser. SSL increases the credibility of a website.
User experience
Google strives to make search results useful and people-friendly . Consequently, it is a vote of confidence in the positioning of those pages that provide a positive user experience .
But how do you recognize them? Do you ask users for opinions? Nothing is further from reality! The page experience is made up of certain factors for both mobile and desktop users, which I have summarized in this table:
| Factor | Mobile | Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | YEAH | YEAH |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | YEAH | YEAH |
| First Input Delay (FID) | YEAH | YEAH |
| HTTPS Security | YEAH | YEAH |
| Absence of intrusive interstitials | YEAH | YEAH |
| Mobile friendliness | YEAH | NO (Not applicable) |
Structured data
Simply put, structured data , of which the most well-known are those from Schema.org, is code used to mark up pieces of content, such as prices, colors, sizes, product listings, events, articles, reviews. , recipes or even local businesses.
Structured data helps the search engine better understand your website and has a positive impact on how your page is presented in search results, but it is not a ranking factor per se.
Negative ranking factors for Google
There are certain practices that are either discouraged or directly penalized by Google. In the past, these types of shortcuts may have worked in the short term, but they inevitably ended in a penalty.
These toxic factors are:
- CLOAKING : Do not show engines content different from what you show search engines.
- STUFFING : Don’t include too many keywords in your text.
- LINK SCHEMES: Buy links, spam blogs, etc. These are tactics that can get you penalized.
- LOW-QUALITY CONTENT : Google penalizes automatically generated content, “scraped” content, and entry pages.
- MALICIOUS BEHAVIOR : Phishing, Trojans, malware, and hacking will get you banned from the index.
- HIDING : Hiding keywords is a spam tactic.
- PIRACY : Hosting stolen content can get you flagged.
- INTRUSIVENESS : Ad-heavy content and intrusive interstitials are a bad idea.
Conclusion
Hundreds of Google ranking factors are relevant, and it is impossible to discuss them in a single post. Although Google has not directly confirmed the information about the factors, based on an unwritten consensus of the SEO community, we can affirm that focusing on the factors detailed above will make your SEO strategy work.
Therefore, if you want to improve your SERP rankings, refining the mentioned elements should help you do so.
