Ranking Factors that Impact Your SEO

Google uses many parameters to analyze a website and decide its position in search results. Why aren’t pages equal? And are some of them more important than others? That’s exactly the topic of today’s post.

A little spoiler alert: for a successful optimization, you need to know the top factors affecting SEO in 2024. This article will tell you about all the crucial parameters you need to adjust if you want to boost your performance in SERPs.

Why Ranking Factors Are Important

An increase in online business share helps to boost sales but also brings new challenges. In fact, online promotion is a race, and the prize is the place on the first page of search results. No one will go further to find the product or service. Well, yeah, 0.63% of users click the second page of search results. But do you really want to target less than a percent of the audience? 

Obviously, you can launch an advertising campaign and invest in contextual ads. But if you don’t optimize the site, it would be a waste of money. It’s no secret that Google uses a set of factors to determine who gets the top places in the rankings. According to various specialists, their number varies from 200 to more than 1000. 

Of course, you can’t address them all (and don’t need to). Still, the key is to understand the intent of your potential customers and adapt your website to it. For example, if you have a news portal, the publication date is crucial. But for other resources, it’s not the case at all. So, let’s take a closer look at the main ranking factors.

Ranking Factors: Links

If a page is linked to reputable sites in its field, it likely contains quality content (that’s how Google sees it). While links are one of the most important ranking factors in SEO, to increase the trust factor, backlinks should mainly come from quality domains. Use Adsy to get white-hat backlinks and improve your chances of landing at the top of search results. 

If you want to search for opportunities yourself, there are others who accept guest posts. In this case, you will have to prepare valuable articles and communicate with site owners.

Internal Linking

Links on your site play an important role, too. First, they interconnect pages and make it easier for visitors to find posts on one topic. So, they contribute to convenience and facilitate indexing by search robots.

Internal links increase the importance of certain pages and boost the effectiveness of their promotion. It means that you must decide which pages to choose before creating the internal net. Remember that correct structure is the key to success.

Nesting of Pages

Many site owners believe that nesting slows down the indexing and harms the performance. But once again, it’s a matter of proper structure and internal organization. You need to distribute the weight between pages. Use drop-down menus and navigation bars. They improve user experience and allow visitors to access the pages they want. Properly configured nesting depth balances organized site structure with user-friendliness.

Ranking Factors: Technical SEO

Google pays a lot of attention to the accessibility of site pages and whether they load quickly enough for those who have a slow Internet connection. A website can be useful and solve the user's problem, but if its performance is unstable or slow, it will significantly affect indexing and user satisfaction. It is the first thing you must prioritize from the beginning. What should you consider exactly?

Page Loading Speed

It is believed that if the page loading speed exceeds 3 seconds, the user loses interest in it. Long page loading times can be due to a large number of errors on the site, unoptimized images, slow server response speed, long time to first byte (TTFB), and the time it takes to process the page code and load content.

So, keep in mind that page loading speed is an important SEO ranking factor for any website. That’s why take your time to check it regularly. It can be easily done online through Google PageSpeed Insights, Web Page Test, Lighthouse extension, and others.

Site Map

This document tells search engines about the pages available for indexing. It is stored in the site's root folder and can only describe pages of the domain where it is located.

The sitemap.xml file should not contain the following pages:

• Pages with a server response code other than 200 OK;
• Pages closed from indexing;
• Duplicate pages;
• Blank and non-informational pages.

For large websites and online stores, it is recommended that the site map is automatically updated since product data is constantly changing (e.g., new pieces are added, and the old ones are deleted).

Broken Links

Links to pages that give an error are considered broken. These pages are viewed negatively not only by search algorithms but also by users. Most visitors leave the site after clicking on a broken link, increasing the bounce rate.

Broken website pages need to be fixed. How? It is better to replace links to broken pages with relevant ones or delete them. One of the faster solutions is to set up a redirect to a similar website page. 

Micro-Markup

Micro-markup basically refers to special tags and attributes in the HTML code of pages. It helps search engines better understand the page's content and present it more accurately in search results. You can consider the following markup schemes: Open Graph (for social networks) and Schema.org (for search engines). It is recommended to use micro markup for navigation elements, products, ratings, reviews, images, videos, etc.

Image Optimization

All images that are posted on the site pages are included in the search. It means that with their help, you can attract additional traffic. To do this, you need:

• Optimize the size of all images – they should weigh no more than 50 KB, ideally;
• Add alt and title tags for all images that will briefly describe the content of the image. It is recommended to insert keywords there as well;
• Optimize image URLs. Use only the hyphen “-” as a separator; do not add any other special characters. 

How To Reduce the Image File Size for a Website?

Document Optimization

PDF, DOC, and XLS files must also be optimized to attract additional traffic to the site.

Optimizing these files consists of filling in the main file attributes: “Title,” “Subject,” and “Author.” These fields can be filled in through the document properties: “File” – “Information” – “Properties.”

Mobile Version

Having an adaptive version of the website has become a necessity since most users access the Internet through mobile devices.

Search engines use separate algorithms to check for the presence of an adaptive version of the site and prioritize such pages when ranking. You can use the Google Search Console service to inspect a site and see how well the mobile version of the site is optimized.

Security

HTTPS improves visitor security by encrypting data between the browser and the server. HTTPS is a secure version of the HTTP protocol and ensures Google that the information it indexes is safe for the search engine and users. So, an SSL certificate is required to secure your site's domain.

And those were the most important tech SEO factors you have to fix. Only when you are done with the technical part you can move on to other promotional technics. And the truth is that when you have your SEO in place, even a cheap marketing company can do amazing work for you.

Ranking Factors: Content

It is worth considering how well the page text satisfies the user's request. Why? Because Google always tries to determine the completeness and accuracy of information. The review starts with the title, which must match the page's content. Meta titles, meta descriptions, and meta tags are also among SEO Google ranking factors. Moreover, based on them, a page snippet is formed in search results.

The quality of your images is another vital selection factor for Google. The preference is given to bright images of at least 1200 pixels. The uniqueness of your text will not be left without attention. 

Overall, if the content is indexed and does not violate the rules, it is suitable for display at the top of search results. Job vacancies, petitions, forms, and content from code repositories rarely appear on the first page unless you specifically request those. At the same time, articles and videos with up-to-date information have a green light. 

Ranking Factors: Usability

Create pages for users first. Do not mislead. Do people need your content? If the answer is negative, you are definitely off track. Make your website unique and valuable to keep people coming back repeatedly. And, of course, remember about your UI/UX. Your website visitors have to easily navigate the page. When they have a usability issue, Google won’t like it either.

Ranking Factors: Publication date

This parameter depends on the user's request. It is more critical for some requests than for others. For example, when searching for news, the user will choose to click on the most recent content. But even if you aren’t a news resource, you will need to update your website pages from time to time. The content must be updated when positions in the rankings fall.

Ranking Factors: Location and Language

Geographic dependence and language should not be overlooked. For example, regional domains are better promoted in the corresponding regions. You should always consider who the web page is being created for and what goals it serves. Use the most effective tools to track this parameter and get up-to-date information.

Conclusion

The days when adding a few keywords to rank well was enough are long gone. Now, to achieve the top ranking, you need to take into account many factors. Above all, prioritize the technical optimization of your website and then move to the other tactics. Remember – algorithms try to select the most valuable results for each request, so make sure your page is optimized to its best.