It doesnt matter how accurate this number is. The sheer magnitude of it is still intimidating. Especially for someone only starting to rank their site.
1 of 37
Downloaded 18 times
More Related Content
30 Most Major Google Ranking Factors A Starter Should Know
1. 30 Most Major Google Ranking
Factors A Starter Should Know
2. Google uses about 200 various factors to rank a site.
Apparently,
It doesnt matter how accurate this number is. The sheer magnitude of it
is still intimidating. Especially for someone only starting to rank their site.
But here is the catch. Not all those factors are equally important. Some
are indeed a must haves but others might not make much of a difference
in your market. Many you dont even have much direct influence on.
If you just launched your site and try to find out what aspects of SEO you
should focus on first, heres a treat for you. A list of the most important
Google ranking factors a beginner should know.
3. On-Page factors
The way your page is optimised has the most profound
effect on its rankings. Here are the page optimization
factors that can affect its search visibility.
4. Keyword in title tag
The title meta tag is one of the strongest relevancy signals for a
search engine. The tag itself is meant to give the accurate description
of the pages content. Search engines use it to display the main title of a
search result. Including a keyword in it will indicate to search engine
what to rank the page for. Ideally, the keyword should be placed at the
start of the title tag. Pages optimized this way will rank better than
those with keyword closer to the titles tag end.
5. Keyword in description tag
The importance of the meta description tag today is often discussed
in SEO circles. It is nonetheless still a relevancy signal. It is also crucial
for gaining user clicks from search results pages. Including keyword in
it makes it more relevant to a search engine and a searcher.
6. Keyword in H1 tag
H1 tag is yet another relevance factor, serving as a description of the
pages content. In spite of an ongoing discussion about its importance, it
is still a good practice to include your keyword in a unique H1 tag on a
page.
7. Using keywords in the pages copy
Up until not long ago, stuffing your page with keywords was a surefire
way to increase its rankings for a particular keyword. Thats not the case
anymore. Using the keyword in the copy still sends a relevancy signal of
what the content is about. How you place it however has changed
drastically.
8. Length of the content
These days searchers want to be educated and wont satisfy with
basic information. Google therefore looks for authoritative and
informative content to rank first. And its a common sense that the longer
your content is, the greater the chance that you can cover more aspects
of your topic. Dont be shy of writing long but highly useful copy then.
9. Duplicate content
Not all factors can influence your rankings in a positive way. Having
similar content across various pages of your site can actually hurt your
rankings. Avoid duplicating content and write original copy for each
page.
10. Canonical tag
Sometimes however having two URLs with similar content is
unavoidable. One of the ways from preventing this from becoming a
duplicate content issue is by using a canonical tag on your site. This tag
does one simple thing, it tells Google that one URL is equivalent of
another, clearly stating that in spite of two pages having the same
content, they are in fact one.
11. Image Optimization
Its not only text that can be optimized on a page but other media
too. Images for instance can send the search engine relevancy signals
through their alt text, caption and description for instance.
12. Content Updates
Google algorithm prefers freshly updated content. It does not mean
that you have to edit your pages all the time. I believe that for
commercial pages, such as product descriptions Google recognizes the
fact that they are not as time sensitive as blog posts covering recent
events. It is wise however to include some strategy to update certain
types of content once every 12 months or so.
13. Outbound links
Linking to authoritative pages sends trust signals to the search
engine. Think of it this way, the only reason why you would send a user to
another site is if you wanted them to learn more of the subject. This can
be a huge trust factor for Google. Too many outbound links however can
greatly diminish the pages PageRank, hurting its search visibility.
Outbound links can affect your rankings but use them in moderation.
15. Keyword in URL
Including keyword in the URL slug (thats the bit that appears after
the .com/part of the URL) is said to send another relevancy signal to
Google.
16. Site factors
There are certain site wide factors that can affect your
sites search visibility as well
17. Sitemap
A sitemap helps search engine to index all pages on your site. It is
the simplest and most effective way to tell Google what pages your
website includes.
18. Domain trust
Trust matters. Its hard no to think that sites Google trusts should
rank higher. But how do you build that trust? Brian from Backlinko
has a full list of trust factors here. Needless to say, building trust
factors of your domain will certainly pay off.
19. Server location
Some SEOs believe that a servers location helps to boost rankings
for that specific country or region.
20. Mobile optimised site
Only a year ago, 46% of searchers used mobile exclusively to
research. I believe this number increased exponentially in the last 12
months. It would be no surprise then that having a mobile optimised site
would affected rankings in some way.
21. Google Webmasters Tools integration
Lastly, having your site verified at Google Webmasters Tools is said
to help with your sites indexing. Even if thats not the case, the tool
provides valuable data you can use to better optimise your site.
22. Off Page factors
When ranking your pages, Google looks at factors
outside of your site as well. Here are some of the key ones
23. The number of linking domains
The number of domains linking to you is one of the most important
ranking factors.
24. The number of linking pages
There might be a number of links from a particular domain to your
site, their number is a ranking factor too. However, it is still better to have
more links from individual domains rather than from a single domain.
25. PageRank of linking page
Not all pages are equal. Links on pages with higher PageRank will
be a bigger factor than those on low PR pages. Therefore, you
should strive to build links from high PR pages.
26. Link relevancy
Some SEOs believe that links from pages related to your pages
topic carry more relevancy for search engines.
27. Authority of linking domain
Similarly to a page PR, the authority of a domain may be a ranking
factor too. For that reason, a link from low PR page on a high PR site
will be worth more that from a lower PR one.
28. Links from homepage
Similarly, some SEOs believe that links from a home page of a
linking domain carry more strength than those on one of its pages.
29. Number of dofollow vs. nofollow links
Google officially stated that they dont count nofollow links (link
with rel=nofollow attribute attached). Therefore the number of your do
follow links should affect your rankings too.
30. Diversity of link types
The types of links you build to your site matters too. Too many
links of one type may be a spam indicator and impact your rankings
negatively.
31. Contextual links
It is said that links within the content of the page are worth more
than links in a sidebar for instance.
32. Link anchor
Anchor text of a link used to be a strong ranking factor. Today it can
be used as a web spam indicator, negatively impacting your rankings.
33. Domain factors
Lastly, your domain can affect your rankings as well.
Some of the domain signals arent as strong as they used
to be, there are few things worth paying attention to
35. Domain history
You may not be the first person who registered the domain. And if your
domain has been penalised in the past, its history might affect its current
rankings.
36. Country TLD extension
If you try to target a specific local market, it is said that having a
domain with a country specific TLD (.pl, .co.uk or .ie for insance) will
help to achieve better rankings for that location.