Top 50 Google SEO Ranking Factors – You Should Know To Rank Any Website
Websites are your assets if you are able to rank your site on Google. We try to rank a site for more traffic. More traffic means more money 😀 Right? We all know Google use more than 200 plus various factors to rank any website, but Not all factors are equally important. If you have a good website then I recommend you to read 5 Effective Ways to maintain SEO ranking. Today I have put together top 50 Google SEO ranking factor list. Some are controversial & Some are proven.
1. Domain Name
Your domain is your website identity. Domain can affect your ranking. Google consider Domain registration length. Domains registered for longer than a year is more trustworthy. Domain History is also very important. Today you buy a domain, but you may not be the first person. If your domain has been penalized in past, then this domain history might be affected your current ranking.
TLD (Top Level Domain) is also important. If you try to target people globally then go for .com .net and .org TLD extensions. If you try to target local market or something like, then you can use a domain with a country specific TLD (Such as: .pl, .co.uk or .ie etc.) It will help to achieve better rankings for that particular location.
2. Exact Match Domain (EMD)
EMD means, Exact match domains are those which match the exact search query, as opposed to domains, such as onlineearning.com, which contain a keyword they would hope to rank for. EMDs have been used as a shortcut to higher rankings. But recently Google update their algorithm in a little bit. For this reason, Low-quality sites are no longer in ranked. But EMDs may still give you an edge if it’s a quality site.
3. Keywords in Domain
Your website keyword appears in Top Level Domain. It does not give you the Boost for rank but having your keyword in domain acts s a positive signal to Google. Try to use keyword As First word in the domain.
Moz’s 2011 panel agreed that keyword appearing in the subdomain can boost rankings! So keyword in Subdomain is important.
4. Keywords in Content
These days, readers are not satisfied if they are only given basic information. They want more. They want to know the core information on this particular thing. You may research or get keyword ideas by using “Google Adwords Tool”. In your article, you have to care about keyword density. It helps you to get your content in higher position. You can calculate it by using the keyword density formula.
5. Keyword in Description & H1 Tag
Using the keyword in description Another relevancy signal. Not especially important now, but still makes a difference. H1 tags are a ‘second title tag’ that sends another relevancy signal to Google.
6. Content-Length
The length of the content is very important. Longer your content is better, and it will rank in Google. 500 words articles were good enough are long gone. SerpIQ has analyzed the top 10 results for content length. Results speak for themselves:
7. Content Quality
We all know “Quality matters!” Quality content is important to rank a website. Google has improved their algorithm, especially after Google Hummingbird update and now Google understands your website content structure.
If you want to rank your website, make sure your articles are worthy and very much informative to others. Always remember, Content is King 🙂
8. Content Update
Google likes updated content. It looks how often you are publishing your new content and how often you are updating them. They use this matrix to determine, Is your website is still alive? And give a lot of credit to sites that frequently publish articles.
9. Duplicate Content
Duplicate Content can negatively influence a site’s search engine visibility. Check your content with Grammarly or Copyscape to make sure that your content is unique or not. You may also report Google if someone copy your website content.
10. Anchor Text Distribution
The anchor texts used for your backlinks. The most used anchor texts should be your website name or brand name. Over-optimizing your money keywords can mean troubles for your website. Natural Anchor Text Distribution Formula has given below: [ After Google Penguin Update ]
11. Sponsored Links
If you are selling or buying links, make sure that you are using a no follow attribute. NoFollow means Google never follow them. If you are buying or selling do follow backlinks, then Google will consider, you are participating in a link scheme, and they will penalize you for manipulating rankings.
12. Page Loading Speed
Google may also use Chrome user data to get a better handle on a page’s loading time as this takes into account server speed. To measure your website speed go to http://gtmatrix.com and then Enter your website Url. Watch this Supercharging page load video.
13. Image Optimization
Images on-page send search engines important relevancy signals through their title, alt-text, file name, description, and caption. Make sure that the name of your images is relevant so that you can rank in Google images as well. You may use a premium theme or some plugin for optimizing your website image.
14. Poor user experience
Poor website user experience is a major issue for any website. Google don’t like them too. Always care about 10 points for good user experience. Points are mentioned below:
- Slow-loading sites
- Frustrating user experience
- Frustrating user experience
- Good user experience is never enforced
- Unnecessary complexity
- Lack of engagement
- Boring
- Lack of contact information
- Infrequently updated content
- Only about sales
15. URL Structure
Use underscores (_) in website post URL. It may work, but I always suggest you to using a hyphen (-).
16. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The meaning of CTR is the percentage of visitors click on your links or website. Meta description is an important element for your site because it influences the click-through rate (CTR) from the Search Engine Results Page. Which really affects on rankings.
17. Backlink
The backlink is one of the most used and important word in the world of search engine optimization. Backlinks are incoming links to a webpage. When a web page links to other pages, it’s called a backlink. Watch this video below. Here’s Matt Cutts answered, “Will backlinks lose their importance in rankings?”
18. Auto-generated content
Auto-generated content is not good for any websites. A couple of years ago, auto-generated content was very common along with Google webmasters. But Nowadays, things have changed dramatically, Websites that have such content are quickly penalized by Google Panda.
19. Outbound links to low quality or penalized websites
Never link your site with low-quality sites. It’s best to use a no follow link. Never insert links to adult, sexual or gambling sites, unless your site is from the same niche.
20. Number of comments per post
It is very much important to make your users share their opinion in your blog posts. Articles with lots of comments are good and they are usually ranking better. Articles with lots of comments are often ranking better.
21. Backlinks loss
Gaining backlinks is always great and in the same way losing backlink is harmful to your website. Want to know when your website is losing backlink? Use Monitor Backlinks SEO Tool. It automatically checks your whole backlinks profile and sends email alerts when one of your links statuses changes.
22. Most linked pages
We all know, The majority of your backlinks will go to your website homepage. If you have no other backlinks pointing to internal links, this may look unnatural in Google’s eyes.
23. Title tag
In on-page SEO title tag is important. Besides the content, Title tag is the only way to understand Google that, what your blog/website post is all about. Your title tags should contain your main keywords. This is good practice 🙂
24. Meta Description
Meta description is another important thing on-page SEO. Each page contains a description of your content. Use your main keywords in the meta description, but don’t abuse them. Proper meta description increases your CTR.
25. Number of total pages on your website
More pages in your website are good in google’s eyes. More pages have indexed in Google. More page & and good traffic also give you higher Alexa rank.
26. SSL certificate
SSL certificate will not boost your traffic or rankings too much, but it’s best to follow SEO best practices.
27. Unnatural backlinks built
If you are running link building campaigns for building backlinks in a short period, Google might have a closer look at your website. If your backlinks profile is unnatural, your site is in danger.
28. Sitemap
A sitemap is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. You need to submit your website sitemap on Google Webmaster, There is no actual guarantee that Google will index all of those website pages.
29. Bounce rate and average time per visit
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors or readers to a particular website who navigate away from the site and go away after viewing only one page. So quality and informative post is the way to maintain good website bounce rate. 40% is average bounce rate for the website.
30. Affiliate links
Use affiliate links in your website is not a big problem. But overuse is spamming. It is good practice to use rel=nofollow in affiliate links.
31. Site uptime
Server problems/Maintenence may affect your rankings if they are often happening. It depends on how long your website has been down.
32. HTML errors and coding problems
A site with lots of HTML errors can signal sloppy coding and a low-quality site. Make sure your site doesn’t have any HTML/CSS errors in Google Webmaster Tools that may affect your rankings.
33. Over-optimizing anything
Nothing on your website should be over optimized. Excess is bad for anything. Either on-page or off-page SEO. When doing SEO for your website, try to follow the best practices of it and without thinking too much about it.
34. Broken links
Having too many broken links on your site can be a sign of neglect and can eventually affect your SEO. So if possible update your content instead of deleting post or page. If you do so, then Google found too many empty pages. Few broken links here and there won’t be too much of a problem, but if you have too many of them, you might be in trouble. So be careful about it.
33. Bullets and numbered lists
Excess is bad for anything. Your website should not be over optimized, either off-page SEO or on-page. When doing SEO for your website, try to follow the best practices, but without thinking too much about it.
34. Breadcrumb and categories
Add your posts to the most relevant categories and make the navigation on your website as smooth as possible.
35. Grammar and spelling
Grammar is not a direct signal that helps to determine the quality of a page. However, statistics shows that websites with fewer grammar mistakes tend to rank better in SERPS.
36. Page Age
Although Google prefers fresh content, an older page that’s regularly updated may outperform a newer page.
37. Server Location
Server location sometimes may influence where your site ranks in different geographical regions. If you target people globally, then I recommend using the United States or United kingdom data center. Especially important for geo-specific searches.
38. Mobile Optimized
Your website should be responsive/mobile optimized to get a higher rank on Google. Remember, nowadays maximum people browsing the internet using their cell phone. Responsive sites are getting an edge in searches from a mobile device.
39. Site Usability
A site that’s difficult to use or to navigate can hurt ranking by reducing time on site, pages viewed and bounce rate. This may be an independent algorithmic factor gleaned from massive amounts of user data.
40. Use Google Analytics & Google Webmaster Tools
Some think that having these two programs installed on your site can improve your page’s indexing. They may also directly influence rank by giving Google more data to work with (i.e.,. more accurate bounce rate, whether or not you get referral traffic from your backlinks etc.).
41. Number of Linking Root Domains
The number of referring domains is one of the most important and vital thing ranking factors in Google’s algorithm.
42. Direct Traffic
It’s confirmed that Google uses data from Google Chrome to determine whether or not people visit a site (and how often). Sites with lots of direct traffic are likely higher quality than sites that get very little direct traffic.
43. Repeat Traffic
They may also look at whether or not users go back to a page or site after visiting. Sites with repeat visitors may get a Google ranking boost.
44. Tweets
It’s likely that Tweets coming from aged, authority Twitter profiles with a ton of followers (like Justin Bieber) have more of an effect than tweets from new, low-influence accounts.
45. Number of Facebook Like & Share
Although Google can’t see most Facebook accounts, it’s likely they consider the number of Facebook likes a page receives as a weak ranking signal. Facebook shares — because they’re more similar to a backlink — may have a stronger influence than Facebook likes.
46. Authority of Facebook User Accounts
As with Twitter, Facebook shares, likes coming from popular Facebook Celebrity may pass more value.
47. Pinterest Pins
Pinterest is an insanely popular social media account with lots of public data. Women are using it most. Though It’s probably that Google considers Pinterest Pins a social signal.
48. Number of Google+1’s
Although Matt Cutts went on the record as saying Google+ has “no direct effect” on rankings, it’s hard to believe that they’d ignore their social network.
49. RSS Subscribers
Google owns the popular Feedburner RSS service, and it’s free. FeedBurner makes sense that they would look at RSS Subscriber data as a popularity/brand signal.
50. ‘Contact us’, ‘About Us’ and ‘Terms of service and privacy’ pages
Google doesn’t like anonymous sites and encourages webmasters to create “contact us” and “about us” pages. Allow the users to connect with you or connect with your company with ease.
If you have an SAS business or an e-commerce website, it’s important to create a terms & conditions page.
Consider the above most important Google SEO ranking factors and build a solid strategy to outrank your most important competitors. If you have any question feel free to ask in comment section 🙂
