20 Google Ranking Factors that Affect your SEO You Need to Know

Search engines like Google rely on more than 200+ Google Tanking Factors when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).

By following these SEO factors, you can increase both your website traffic and Google Search Engine Rankings. 

Today in this article we will discuss the Top SEO Ranking Factors or you can also say Google Ranking factors.

Google Ranking Factors that Affect your SEO

Top SEO Ranking Factors You Should Know

Some of these factors, such as domain authority, user experience, and click-through rate, are incredibly important to your page’s performance on the Google SERP.

1. Top-Level Domain Name

Google provides more priority to Top-level domains than any sub-domain and this factor is sure of great importance when ranking a keyword.

2. Domain Age

How old your domain is, it shows how serious you are to your online identity or your blog or website.

Domains with age between 5 years to 15 years ranks organically without any backlinks or social shares.

3. Keywords Appears in Domain

Having a keyword in your domain name doesn’t give you the SEO boost that it used to.

For example, if your website is related to Job and education, then include the term Job and Education in your Domain Name. 

4. Country TLD extension

Having a Country Code Top Level Domain (.cn, .pt, .ca) can help the site rank for that particular country… but it can limit the site’s ability to rank globally.

5. SSL / HTTPS

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate provides your website’s URL with the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) designation, which shows users that you have a secure site.

http vs https
https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/what-is-ssl-tls-https

HTTPS improves security for visitors by encrypting data between browser and server.

6. Site usability

Websites that provide a smooth, intuitive interface for visitors commonly rank better than those that are clunky and difficult to navigate.

7. Domain Trust/TrustRank

Many SEOs believe that “TrustRank” is a massively important ranking factor. And a Google Patent titled “Search result ranking based on trust”, seems to back this up.

8. Site Architecture

A well put-together site architecture (for example, a silo structure) helps Google thematically organize your content.

Website Architecture Map

A site with clean, well-coded architecture is easy for Google to crawl and index.

9. Site Uptime

Lots of downtime from website maintenance or web server issues may affect your rankings.

10. Duplicate meta descriptions on site

Duplicate meta descriptions can make it more difficult for Google to crawl and contextualize your pages and down all of your page’s visibility. How to Write Eye Carchy Blog Description Ultimate Guide

11. Breadcrumb Navigation

Breadcrumb navigation makes it easy for visitors and Google to look through your website.

12. HTML Sitemap

An HTML sitemap makes it easy for Google to crawl and index your website thoroughly. However, Google recently stated that HTML sitemaps aren’t “useful” for SEO.

13. Title Tag Starts with Keyword

Keyword at the beginning of title tag

According to Moz , title tags that starts with a keyword to perform better than title tags with the keyword towards the end of the tag.

Make sure, however, that you’re still using clear, concise language.

14. Keyword in Title

Use keyword in title for page ranking, Keyword are very essential to ranking well. For the best results, keep your title tag under 60 characters.

15. Keyword in URL

keyword in url

Keywords directly in URLs send helpful relevancy signals to Google. keywords in URLs is a minor ranking factor. 

16. Keyword in Meta Description

Google doesn’t use keywords in meta descriptions as a ranking factor. Meta tag can impact click-through-rate, which is a key ranking factor.

17. Keyword Appears in H1 Tag

Google uses your H1 tag as a secondary relevancy signal, according to results from one correlation study.

18. Backlinks

Backlinks are the oldest and most important ranking factor. Backlinks are also very important to improve domain authority, Google website ranking, and website traffic.

19. Page Speed

Google’s research suggests that 53% of mobile users will leave a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

google page speed

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to learn how your site’s speed fares and see what improvements you can make to decrease load time.

20. Schema Markup

Schema Markup

Schema markup is a small but important way to stand out on the Google SERP. A snippet of code can be added to your site to show additional information about your organization, upcoming events, and product reviews below your search result.

FAQ – Google Ranking Factors

What is most important ranking factor in Google?

Website Page speed has been cited as one of the leading SEO ranking factors for years.

How much content is good for SEO rankings?

If you’re writing a blog post that you want to position, the minimum (in most cases) would be 500 words.

Final Words on the Google Ranking Factors

There will be a big impact on SEO marketing strategies in 2021. Understanding these 20 valuable ranking factors can make or break your SEO strategy.

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Karan Arya

Karan Arya

Karan Arya is passionate Blogger and Agency Owner who loves to share his knowledge and experience to help people to grow their online business and make passive income online.

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