The 12 Most Important SEO Ranking Factors

That’s what you want if those parameters create duplicate pages, but not ideal if you want those pages to be indexed. Googlebot starts out by fetching a few web pages, and then follows the links on those webpages to find new URLs. Mastering on-page SEO is essential for improving your website’s visibility, driving targeted traffic, and ultimately boosting your online success. Since switching to mobile-first indexing in 2018, Google has prioritized sites optimized for mobile traffic, even for desktop search.

• But just because videos have been uploaded a long time ago doesn’t mean that they should disappear into the dust.
• The horizontal axis measures the position of a page in the search results, while the vertical axis is the median time captured across all 2,000 different search terms used in the study.
• Your listing should include your address, contact information, and hours of operation.
• We would learn even more from diving into the individual pages themselves.
• Link building, for example, is a time-intensive and ongoing task, whereas a lot of work with reviews or local citations can be automated or outsourced, freeing you up to focus on other factors.
• A key component to optimize your local SEO rankings is effectively leveraging your Google Business Profile.

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights provide insights into how your website performs in terms of factors like speed or mobile-friendliness. By enhancing these technical SEO factors, you not only improve user experience but also boost your SEO ranking. To guarantee the success of your SEO strategies, it’s crucial to measure success using key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics provide insights into how well your website is performing in relation to SEO ranking factors. In this blog, we’ll discuss the most important factors that influence your SEO ranking and offer practical tips for improving your website’s performance. You’ll also learn about on-page and off-page SEO, as well as strategies for enhancing technical SEO and user experience to boost your traffic.

We’ve discussed content in this guide to Google SEO ranking factors. That’s because it’s one of the most important search ranking factors (right up there with user experience, links, and RankBrain, which we’ll get to in a while). A local rank tracker tool is a specialized software designed to monitor and analyze the search engine rankings of local keywords for local businesses. It works by allowing businesses to input their targeted local keywords, which are phrases or terms that include location-specific information relevant to their products or services. Once the local keywords are entered into the tool, it continuously tracks the search engine rankings of the business’s website for those keywords in Google. Each contributes to the broader picture of your local SEO efforts.

Paid ads can drive immediate traffic, but they require consistent investment. This is especially crucial for companies in the ERP & CRM space, as higher rankings contribute to sustained online success and industry authority. Strong SEO rankings can enhance brand recognition, boost engagement, and drive more conversions. Internal linking (or structure) tells the search engine which parts of your website are more important as well as pass the link equity between the interlinked pages. Therefore, depending on the search query, properly updated content may or may not get a boost in the SERP from Google. Since the launch of Google’s freshness algorithm, pages with trending topics may get higher rankings if they were updated recently with new, interesting content.

#9 – Brick & Mortar Business

If the user returns to the search results quickly this is a strong negative signal. The Google Penguin penalty tends to focus on your backlink profile. Link velocity is a measurement of how many links you gain or lose over time. Just like buying links can get you in trouble, so can selling links. There are numerous examples of well known sites selling links and being penalised. Guest posting was a great way to get backlinks a couple years back.

How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, Ranking, & More

The placement and context of the backlink within the linking page also matter. Website links within your industry or niche are more valuable because they are contextually appropriate. For instance, a backlink from a well-respected technology blog to a tech product review site is much more beneficial than a link from an unrelated site like a cooking blog. Refer to our dedicated tutorial on evergreen content so that it remains relevant, informative, and valuable to audiences for months, years, or even decades. As part of the Search team, she enjoys creating content that helps you master SEO.

But the real value is tracking your impressions and clicks over time. If they’re moving on’ up, it’s clear that these SEO SEO Anomaly best practices are working. If you don’t have the Google Search Console setup, you’re flying blind with your SEO. UX can directly help with SEO because Google knows when people start “Pogo sticking” after landing on your site from the search results. But if you’re an eCommerce site owner with thousands of products, writing unique content for each page can be tricky.