What are Google’s Ranking Factors in SEO?
We all know that SEO is an area that is always changing. Google and the other search engines update their algorithms all the time, which means that SEO ranking factors change all the time. That’s why it can be hard for an SEO company in Gurgaon to keep up with what’s new.
You will not only be less likely to get your site ranked better if you don’t know about the newest SEO rating factors. The worst thing that could happen is that our site could be punished or even banned if there is an abrupt change in algorithms that we can fix if we know more.
Google’s current ranking system takes hundreds of SEO ranking factors into account. Based on what we saw in 2023 and 2024, here are the ten most important ones:
1. Certificate for Site Security
Google has told website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS since about 2014.
HTTP and HTTPS are both basic methods that let us share and receive information in the form of a website. HTTPS (where “S” stands for “Secure”) was created to add an extra layer of security by using an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate to send data safely.
Going from HTTP to HTTPS won’t directly help your site’s SERP score, but sticking with HTTP could get it demoted. In fact, if you try to access a site with HTTP in Chrome, Google will send you a “Not Secure” message, which will make a lot of people leave your site quickly.
Another important thing to think about is that Google Analytics is much more useful when HTTPS is used, since Google won’t just show straight traffic from link sources.
It’s now very easy to move your page from HTTP to HTTPS, if you haven’t already.
2. Site that works on phones
It’s not a secret that Google has given mobile-friendly sites more weight on their SERP since about 2015. If you want your site to do better in SEO, you need to make sure it is mobile-friendly or mobile-responsive.
It’s now easier than ever to make a page that works on mobile devices. Most likely, your site will be mobile-friendly as soon as you finish building it with a visual website builder like Wix or Squarespace. If you use WordPress, all you have to do is switch to a mobile-friendly theme. These days, many of them are even free.
Also, pay extra attention to what you’re writing. If your site is mobile-friendly instead of mobile-responsive, the mobile version will be different from the PC version. Make sure to check out the differences between the mobile and PC versions of the material. You should make sure that both versions have the same amount and quality of items.
3. How Fast Pages Load
Page speed is the amount of time it takes to fully show all the information on a page. This is different from “site speed,” which is the page speed for a random sample of page views across the whole website, and “time to first byte,” which is the time it takes to get the first byte of data from the server.
Google says that half of the people who visit your page will leave after three seconds. The return rate is also a key ranking feature.
Google’s Page Speed Insights lets you keep an eye on your page speed and make changes to your site based on the ideas it gives you.
4. Technical factors
In reality, this is a group of different technical on-site factors, such as, but not limited to:
You are putting a goal term in the names and headings of pages. As a general rule, you should put your focus keyword in your title as early as possible. This is where Google first looks to see what your content is about and how relevant it is.
META description that sounds natural and interesting to people reading it, while also easily including the terms you want to rank for. Make sure the META description is short and to the point.
Using header tags (from H1 to H12 to H13 and so on) to organize the text correctly, which makes it easier for Google to find and read.
Putting goal keywords in the alt tags of pictures tells Google that the images are related to the content. This can also make things easier for people who are blind or have low vision.
Use organized data (schema.org) code to make sure Google can properly understand all of your site’s parts. With schema code, your page will also be able to get rich or promoted snippets.
5. Quality, length, and optimization of content
The subject is very complicated, but a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that your SEO will only work as well as your content. It doesn’t matter how well you optimize your content if it’s not good and doesn’t help your target group.
6. Domain age, authority, and getting the best URLs
This means that more than half of the websites on the first page of SERP are at least three years old. In fact, only a few websites younger than a year are in the top ten.
This shouldn’t stop you, though, because even if your site is brand new, it’s not impossible to rank. That being said, you still have an edge if your site is older.
Domain names with the target keyword in the URL are called exact-match domain names. These can help you rank if your website is important and useful for the target keyword. Remember that Google has said it will punish exact-match domain names that don’t make sense.
Google’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) concept says that the authority of the website is also important. In other words, content from a well-known site is more likely to rank than content from a brand-new site.
If you are a new content creator, there isn’t much you can do about this, but making your site SEO-friendly from the start can help in the long run. You can stay ahead of the competition if you keep adding high-quality content to your well-optimized site after it has “matured.”
7. Add Profile Link
Your backlinks are especially important, but your internal linking system and links that go out to other sites are also important.
Most of the time, all three types of links go to an anchor text. The background of the page that the link goes to and the anchor text also matters.
Inbound or backlinks
Backlinks are like how people vote on the internet. If another website links to yours, it means that they trust you as a source. This is why backlinks have been and still are the most important SEO ranking factor.
But Google has changed its formula over the last six years or so, making the quality of the links coming in more important than the number of them. It’s also important that the source of the backlink is relevant. For example, if your site is about digital marketing and all of a sudden gets a backlink from a good basketball site, it probably won’t count.
Links going out
It’s also important to use outbound links to sites that are easily related to your material. You can let Google know that you are researching for your article this way.
Linking inside
It can be very helpful for searching if the layout has internal links. Google will learn about how your site is organized, and pages will share some influence with each other. It will also make it easier for people to find the information they need on your site, which is good for user experience (UX).
8. Social signs
When it comes to SEO, social cues are a bit tricky. On the one hand, Google says they are not a direct rating element. That being said, studies have shown that when people share and interact with your content on social media, it does help your SERP rating.
Why does this happen? This is mostly because of two things:
- A lot of people will visit your site and read your content if it is shared a lot on social media. This will let Google know that your content is important, and it will also help with your UX (we’ll talk more about this below).
- There is also a better chance of getting backlinks if more people read more material.
- To use these social signs, make sure it’s easy for people to share your material. But the quality of your work as a whole would decide how likely people are to share it. It is very important to make sure that your material is both high-quality and useful.
9. Elements of User Experience (UX)
AI-based Google Rank brain lets the company keep an eye on user experience factors in real time and use that data to decide how to rank websites.
Google mostly looks at three UX factors:
- The bounce rate is the number of people who click on a SERP result and then leave the page right away. It means that your page is not related to the search question if the number is high. Your page may be pushed down in the SERP.
- When someone clicks on a SERP result and goes to your site, dwell time is how long they stay there. Dwell time is connected to the return rate. It’s better when it’s longer.
- In simple terms, the click-through rate is the number of people who go to your site after clicking on a SERP result. It could get you fired if it’s too low.
- When someone looks at your page in the SERP, they can only see the snippet, which is based on the page’s META description. To make your META description as appealing to people as possible, make sure to improve it. Also, make sure it has something to do with your term.
- Dwell time and bounce rate would depend on a lot of the things we talked about above. The two most important things, though, are the quality of your information and how well your site is doing.
10. Real information about a business
This is very important for SEO in your area. But putting details about your business on your website can help it look more trustworthy and official.
It’s important to add and improve things like
- NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. Make sure you use correct data.
- Connect to social networks
- If you have a local business, your Google My Business page
- Customer and client reviews and/or testimonials. There are review sites like Yelp and even Google Maps that you can use.
Again, keep in mind that these ten things are not the only ones that will affect your site’s SEO success after 2024. They are still the most important things right now, though. It’s very important to publish good, relevant content, work with a digital marketing agency in Gurgaon, come up with an SEO strategy, and make sure your site works well for both people (user experience, site speed, mobile responsiveness) and Google (indexability, keyword optimization, etc.).
