- Top 10 Google Ranking Factors That Really Matter
Top 10 Google Ranking Factors That Really Matter
SEO is the process of ranking websites on search engines based on SEO ranking factors. It is essential as it drives unpaid traffic from the landing pages appearing high on search engines. SEO is ever-evolving and with many Google algorithm updates, the SEO strategies keep changing. But here are the basic 10 essential SEO ranking factors based on white hat SEO techniques that will always influence SEO rankings, improve online visibility, and drive organic traffic.
1. Content Quality and Relevance
High-quality content written for humans and not search engines will always help to rank websites as it provides value. When visitors find the content useful, they will likely share it on social platforms. Social signals always help content to rank higher based on engagement.
Visual assets will help increase user experience, search engine rankings, and engagement. This also means that you get relevant traffic which will contribute to conversions.
Create unique content that is engaging having enough information about the topic. Add keywords naturally and not for search engines. Maintain the keyword density and prominence. Always add resourceful content no matter in what stage of the content marketing funnel you are targeting.
2. Off-page SEO / Backlinks
The link profile is the number of inbound links landing on your website from another authoritative site. High-quality backlinks improve the site’s domain authority and contribute to the success of citation and trust flow. Make sure you target only high-quality sites to build links. This will help in building the trust for your brand.
Top off-page SEO ranking factors
- Domain Authority –The authority built by sharing link-worthy content on the high authority domains.
- Domain Age – The date till today from the day of registration
- Page Rank – Ranking individual web pages built by getting links from high-authority domains.
- Page Authority – Authority of individual web pages built by getting links from high-authority domains.
- Link Juice – A level of authority or value that is passed from a linking page to the page or pages it links to. Links are votes by other websites that your page is valuable and worth promoting. The value of equity is passed through hyperlinks.
- Citation Flow – The score represents the number of citations or quantity of linking volume.
- Trust Flow – The score represents the quality of reffering domains.
- Follow and No-follow – Follow means to pass the link juice and nofollow is not to pass the link juice.
- Anchor text – The text used to link other webpages or sites related to the keyword it is targeted for.
- Relevancy – It is the term associated with how relevant the backlinks are built for the site. It shows a good score if the backlinks are built on the related niche platforms.
- Inbound Links – The number of backlinks pointing to the main website from other domains.
- Referring Domains – This represents the domains on which the backlinks are built. It assigns unique value no matter how many links are built.
- High-Quality Backlinks – The quality of backlinks always matters more than quantity.
- Social Media Optimization – Optimizing social profiles and sharing content regularly helps in improving rankings
- Disavow – Manually analyzing link profile helps in removing poor backlinks and adding more and more quality backlinks to the site
3. On Page SEO
These are the SEO factors directly implemented on a website to improve its online visibility and search engine rankings.
On-page SEO ranking factors and best practices
- Unique and High-Quality Content
- Target keyword in the Meta Title
- Target Keyword and secondary keyword in Meta Description using content that entices clicks.
- Target keyword to keep URL simple and short
- Image Optimization (ALT Text)
- Heading Tags Optimization (H1, H2, H3, H4..)
- Internal linking/Contextual Linking
- Site Security is key when it comes to developing the trust of users
- Proper Link Accessibility
- Anchor text building for relevant keyword and their landing page.
- Place fewer Redirections to improve the site speed.
- Plan the website hierarchy and URL properly to avoid too many redirections
- Formatting for Readability & Featured Snippet
- Perform a speed test and improve it to make less than 2.5 seconds.
4. Technical SEO
When you perform a site audit, it is essential to know the errors, warnings, and notices. You can run your website scan in paid tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush or you can try free tools that provide results up to 500 pages like Screaming Frog Spider.
Technical SEO Factors and best practices
- Robots.txt – (Disallow payment, log in. Other secured folders) and allow important pages and add a sitemap
- Accessible to crawlers and indexed– Ensure all your service, product, and blog pages are crawlable and indexed.
- Submit sitemap– Add both XML & HTML sitemaps for search engines and users.
- Redirections– Allow pages that have moved to redirect but avoid too many redirects as it can affect the page speed.
- Rectify Broken Links – The links indexed and broken should be rectified as they can lose relevant and targeted traffic.
- Canonical tags – Place canonical Tags or self-referencing links to know the preferred version and prevent duplications.
- Customized 404 Page – This lands the customer where they can click the link of the homepage and browse the site instead of directly exits.
- Schema markup implemented – This helps to enhance the meta description with ratings, reviews, and price and increases the click-through rates by making it more clickable.
- Tracking Codes – Make sure your all tracking codes such as Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, and Google Tag Manager are added to the site.
Related: Schema Markup Guide for Marketing Consultants
5. Local SEO
Local SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google. Businesses having physical locations can optimize their local SEO strategy to get benefits. Optimizing Google My Business profile can be key to local SEO success.
Top local SEO Factors
- GMB Profile – Add all the details including name, address, phone and website to the Google My Business profile to get local search visibility. You can also add hours of operation to get the customers when you are open. This will help you to drive more customers to the shop and increase sales.
- Reviews – Always ask your clients to review you to get the brand reputation and trust of the customers.
- Schema Markup – Always add local business schema with full details to get better local online visibility.
- Local Keywords – Add local keywords such as “near me” in your meta tags and content to dominate your service area.
6. User Experience
The site is created for visitors to provide the information they are looking for and adding a relevant call to action button can create a great user experience. Avoid using too many ads and popups that can distract users and force them to opt out. Make sure they have good engagement time and low bounce rates. If they find the site valuable, they will browse the site regularly and become repeat visitors of the website.
Core web vitals play a crucial role and optimizing them can increase the number of visitors to the site. The three main factors are the Largest contentful Paint, interaction to next paint, and cumulative layout shift.

7. Keyword Research and Optimization
Keywords are the backbone of the site so ensure that you search the right target keywords for the site. Target the keywords with high search volumes and low keyword difficulty. Use keyword variations and try to answer the query users may type in search engines to land your page. Avoid keyword stuffing and cannibalization. Some of the best practices are
- Include the target keyword in the URL, title tag, meta description, alt text of images.
- Use primary and secondary keywords throughout the content using keyword variations
- Long tail keywords can help you rank better
- Maintain Keyword density
- Follow keyword prominence
- Use Keyword variations
8. Site Architecture and Internal Linking
Plan the hierarchy of your website so that you don’t have to migrate or use many redirections. Create your service/product pages and place them in Menu for users to navigate easily what they are looking for. You can also plan a blog that provides information about the product and this means you are not just selling but engaging users so that they can be satisfied with the information and decide to purchase.
Internal linking is one of the effective techniques for engaging users, increasing time spent on the site, and reducing bounce rates. This is how contextual internal linking can be a great Google ranking factor to improve the rankings.
When performing keyword research, categorize them for service page, backlink, or blog page. This helps to generate useful content including BOFU, MOFU, and TOFU in the content marketing funnel. You can categorize them based on search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, CPC bid cost, and number of ads. You can check the keyword details in the SEMrush tool.

9. Mobile Friendliness
If you want to capture more buyers then you must optimize your site for the mobile. Creating a mobile mobile-friendly site can help you generate more sales and profits. You can check the lighthouse report for mobile and optimize it to have a better user experience. Page speed insights also generate results on how to make mobile marketing more effective. Here are some interesting statistics about Mobile Marketing.
- 55.4% of internet users use mobile phones to buy online.
- 18 % of mobile users will leave a website if it does not load within 5 seconds.
- If your website loads with a 1-second delay, it may result in 7 % fewer conversions.
Important Mobile Marketing Tips
- Speed up your site to load it before 2.5 seconds and ensure it is responsive in the theme selected.
- Improve the local marketing by targeting search queries people may type on mobile search such as “pizza near me”
- Build mobile-friendly emails to get high conversion rates on email marketing campaigns.
- If you are running a discount campaign then release the promotions through text or WhatsApp message marketing.
- Take advantage of videos in the content so that people may spend more time
- Voice Search Optimization effectively gets more mobile traffic because people look for emergency services by just saying on mobile rather than typing. Example – During water leakage “plumber near me”
- Make proper navigation – Always add a mobile-friendly menu on the site to land visitors on your important service pages.
10. Page Load Speed
The ideal time for site loading is 2.5 seconds or less. Fast loading creates a good user experience and prevents the users’ exits. Fix the site loading issues for mobile as most searchers prefer the mobile site first then the desktop version. You can always explore device reports in Google Analytics 4 and check preference device categories by users on the site to optimize the site loading.
Here are some of the best practices for improving the site speed-
- Enabling browser caching
- Remove any non-essential elements from the website that may be causing slower load times.
- Reduce server response times (TTFB).
- Serve images in next-gen formats.
- Minimize redirects
- Practice lazy loading
- Image optimization
- Reduce server time responses
Bonus Tip – Social Signals
Social signals are the overall share, like, and social media visibility perceived by search engines. Optimize social media profiles as they help to drive organic social traffic. Regularly share the posts so that users can know about your content and they can share across different social media channels. These activities contribute to a page’s organic search rankings and act as a citation similar to backlinks. Post daily, listen to what visitors want to say and monitor the analytics and insights to know about your services.
Increased social signals mean good domain authority and value to the URL and visitors find it useful when the post becomes viral. This also favors editorial links or earning links from different sites on the entire web. Ensure your content is unique, engaging, and informative and can create positive interaction.
These are the top 10 essential SEO ranking factors that really matter and you should optimize them in your SEO strategy to improve positions, online visibility, and domain authority.