How these areas are ordered in importance has remained broadly similar to previous years, meaning every discipline should still be accounted for in your strategy. To summarize the whole facts, the following has to be considered if you want to climb to the top of the YouTube ranking. While one can argue that longer videos have an advantage over shorter ones SEO Anomaly in this respect, you shouldn’t forget that it’s ultimately the video content that matters. For more information on these techniques, check out our guide on How to Rank in AI Overviews. The Search Engine Cage team is on a mission to educate entrepreneurs. We make things easier for the small business owner, by writing articles that help them to understand SEO and Digital Marketing.

Search Engine Ranking Factors 2015

  • Look for authority websites where you could contribute, resources lists that you could be part of, or ideas to create content that you could use as part of a digital PR campaign.
  • High Google rankings lead to more organic traffic, which is one of the most significant sources of web traffic.
  • Once you have your keywords, you’ll begin optimizing your site to start improving your ranking.
  • A keyword rank checker provides insights into how specific keywords perform in search results.
  • High-quality content offers original insights, helpful information, or unique first-hand experiences.
  • That’s why it’s important that you regularly update your content to keep it fresh.

We can’t mention content and keywords without talking about entities, which Google is using to better understand topics. This article explains in depth why it’s essential to understand entities in SEO. Content is key not just for ranking, but also for user experience and conversion.

It also provides competitor analysis, which can help you understand how your local search performance stacks up against your business rivals. Knowing where you stand can help you refine your strategies to outshine your competitors. Unfortunately, while you can optimize many aspects of your online presence, changing your business’s physical location isn’t exactly feasible. However, this doesn’t mean that you’re helpless against the algorithms. There are still ways you can optimize for proximity and give your local SEO a healthy boost.

seo ranking factors

A fast-loading website provides a better user experience and is favored by search engines. Websites that take too long to load will see higher bounce rates and lower user engagement, which can negatively affect their rankings. While social media can be beneficial for brand awareness and traffic, it is not a primary ranking factor.

Content Freshness (On-Page SEO)

seo ranking factors

This can be trickier than just looking at your daily rankings but will give you a better idea of the success of your SEO strategy and how you’re perceived. In 2025, SEO will focus less on raw keywords and more so around search intent across diverse platforms like social media and LLMs. As well as this, it’ll be important to produce more video content as discovery platforms integrate these more into their SERPs.

seo ranking factors

Having unique images and videos to support your main content is a quality signal. I recommend investing in a good graphics design team who will produce unique images. You should take advantage of this and ensure you include your target keyword. Matt Cutt’s originally suggested that private Whois data can be combined with other factors as a negative signal.

seo ranking factors

Google’s bots are analyzing your website and look for duplicate content. If you have to link to a low-quality website, it’s best to use a nofollow link. An article from The Verge shed light on leaked documents detailing parts of Google’s ranking system. While it revealed some new pieces of information that no one knew, much of it just reaffirmed what we’ve been doing all along, including many SEO strategies professionals already use. Explore search everywhere optimization to enhance visibility beyond traditional SEO and reach audiences across multiple platforms.

I hope you liked this article on the most important Google ranking factors. If you need more info on your site’s Google rankings, read this post on the best Google ranking checker tools. So, working on your content’s structure and organization can help improve its readability.