Google’s mysterious search engine algorithm is what makes SEO so hard. Google uses over 200+ ranking factors and updates its search engine algorithms 600 times a year.
In 2018, Google’s ranking algorithm is no more a half-secret as it used to be earlier but still, 1/4th part of Google’s search engine algorithm is a secret.
Google keeps the list of all search engine ranking factors a secret. Still, we know over 120+ ranking factors that Google considers while ranking websites.
And these ranking factors are all enough for your business to rank #1 on Google. If you can optimize your website for all these known ranking factors, you will never need to worry about other unknown factors in the Google ranking algorithm.
So let’s dive into the list of all known Google search ranking factors. The list contains both factors that positively and negatively affect your search rankings.
Complete List of Google Search Engine Ranking Factors
For any SEO agency like seoliquido, it’s a big challenge to keep up their clients ranking. So, it’s so important to up to date about the Google’s latest ranking factors.
Note: The list is not arranged according to any specific priority order. I have introduced Google ranking factors randomly in this list.
Keywords in Meta Title Tag
Including your focus keyword in the meta title tag of the page is still an important On-page SEO signal. This is always advised to include the keyword in your title tag.
If you use Yoast SEO, you would know when you place your focus keyword in the last of your title then Yoast SEO recommends you that it would be better if you place the keyword in the first position of the title tag.
Content Quality and Length
I don’t know how Google judge content quality still if you notice, most of the content ranking on 1st page of SERP is of better quality and detailed than content ranking on the 2nd page. Content quality has been identified to be a major ranking factor, especially after the panda update.
Links
When you link out to other quality sites, this shows your willingness to help your readers out in all possible ways thus this can gain you search engine trust and will help you rank better in SERP. Linking externally to other sites is a now a proven SEO tactic.
Internal Links
Using Internal links on a page is advised for better user experience and low bounce rate. Internal links help distribute your domain authority throughout your site. You should use some internal links but not too many.
Broken Links
Broken links negatively affect your search rankings. So you need to minimize the number of broken links as this gives a bad user experience.
Page Load Time
Site loading speed has been identified as a ranking factor that most search engines use. Thus fast loading website is more favored by Google than slower ones. A search engine may estimate your page load time by your HTML code and by using chrome user data.
Domain Authority and Page Authority
A page on higher DA site would perform better than a page on less authoritative domain. This is usually the case but not always. While Google does not look for their Moz DA(most probably) while ranking sites but still, higher DA means better rankings.
A page on higher authority site would have a higher PA also so higher PA pages rank better than lower ones.
Mobile Optimization
Site optimized for mobile devices tend to rank higher on mobile devices than sites not optimized for mobile devices.
Site Usability
More usable sites have low bounce rates and high session durations and thus site usability indirectly affect your search ranking especially after coming off the rank braid update.
Trust of Linking Domains
Getting a link from a trusty domain is always a better option. When you get links from a trusty domain, you get some trust passed onto your domain thus helping you gain trust in eyes of Google.
Conclusion
While Only a few direct ranking factors are known to us, on the basis of these we can conclude that what things affect your site search rankings positively and what affects your search rankings negatively.
The major search ranking factors are:
- Content quality
- Backlink profile
- User experience
- On-page SEO: On-page SEO tactics are all together are major ranking signals.
- Domain trust
- Social signals
That’s all. I hope this list will help you a lot for ranking #1 on Google.
