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There are said to be over 200 factors that all play a part in your Google ranking. Unfortunately, we don’t know what all these factors are because Google keeps it a secret, but we can determine some common factors that help determine what affects your ranking on Google.
Many people assume there is a clear guideline as to what affects their ranking and often ask us if there is any quick fix or specific things they can do. No, there are no top 5 specific factors that influence your website’s success or ranking. These 200+ factors change constantly, so bear in mind there is no quick ranking method. Google’s ranking algorithm is always evolving & updating.
So how do we get a good ranking in the search results?
First and foremost, I’m sure by now you are familiar with the importance of SEO for your site. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which is responsible for optimizing web pages for the results you see in search engines. A ranking refers to your website or page’s position in the search engine results.
Now let’s take a look at some top-ranking factors:
Quality Content
One of the top-ranking factors will always be the quality of your content. Google checks and favours helpful content that is most relatable to the search. User experience is prioritized by Google, meaning the results that are considered the most helpful and understandable for the reader will be prioritized.
A subfactor of this topic is your content length. Although there is no particular length that your content should be, SEO experts have conducted some tests and found that longer content ranks higher. As a general guide, between 500-1,000 words is most common. When it comes to general on-page content, you want to aim for a minimum of 300 words per page. Anything less and it may be flagged as “thin content”. That being said, of course, every single page can’t contain 300 words. For example, you don’t need to add 300+ words on a category or pagination page. So when it comes to updating your website content for SEO, there is some common sense that goes into it and you don’t need to take every audit warning seriously.
Relevant Keyword Usage
Relevant keywords are key to your content’s success because they correspond to the queries users input into Google. So, your keywords and content should be relative, helpful and easy to understand. Do not use unrelated keywords or “black hat” SEO techniques to hide keywords in your content as this can result in your site being seen as spam.
Page Speed
In the past, Google has confirmed that site speed is taken into account for their search rankings. This makes sense because they focus a lot on positive user experience, and users do not like slow websites. Many studies from SEO experts prove that if a page takes too long to load, a visitor spends less time there and would rather go back and load the next search result. Today, this factor is still relevant in SEO. It is recommended you get your site to load in under 2 seconds.
Mobile Friendliness
The number of searches made on desktop versus mobile is constantly fluctuating, but the fact remains that the number of mobile searches is increasing year by year. More than half of all Google searches are now made via mobile devices, making it crucial to ensure your site is mobile-friendly. We recommend placing this at the top of your priority list. You can check your site speed scores with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. If your performance score is red, it’s time to work on your website’s optimization with your developer.
Domain Age
The age of your website domain is a factor in your Google ranking because older websites hold top ranking keywords for longer. This makes it harder for new domains to match up to your site’s relevance and long-term usage of keywords in your niche. Likewise, it takes a lot longer to catch up to competitors’ rankings or outrank them when they’ve held the top spots for a while.
Backlinks
Still rated as one of the highest ranking factors, backlinks play a big role in your Google ranking. Quality backlinks prove to Google that your site is authentic and you are producing helpful content for visitors. Having high-quality and relevant backlinks will also help your site appear trustworthy to Google.
Social Shares
A strong online presence drives organic traffic. It is no secret that having a presence on social media platforms is beneficial to your site. When visitors enjoy content, they share it. Shared content drives more traffic to the content source, your website. Google’s spiders “crawl” pages and take notes on your content shares. Again, Google highly favours user experience. If a user is sharing your content that means your content is good quality, trustworthy and helpful – all extremely important in the Google ranking algorithm.
Final thoughts
What affects your ranking on Google doesn’t come down to any specific method or SEO strategy. As you’ve learned from this discussion, there are more than 200 factors in Google’s ranking algorithm. But with the help of SEO experts, we have some insight into the highest Google ranking factors. We know there are a few basic rules and guidelines to follow to help your rankings.
Take notes, stay consistent, follow expert advice, and hopefully, your site will rank in the top three search results with time.
If you’re looking for an SEO team to help get your rankings up, check out our affordable SEO plans and we’ll help get you going!