10 Advanced Google SEO Ranking Factors to Double Traffic

Websites are increasingly becoming an essential marketing tool for businesses. It helps companies reach out to a more influential audience at a relatively lower cost and enhance conversion rates. Websites are also used as a means of providing information about the portfolio of solutions provided by businesses.

As competition increases, there is a need to enhance website ranking during a keyword search. Therefore, you must adhere to the best Google ranking factors to ensure your website ranks high during a keyword search. We will take you through some of the Google ranking factors in this article.

Technical SEO Google Ranking Factors

Ensuring that you are adopting technical SEO best practices can be daunting. Therefore, you may take the help of a professional web design and development company to ensure you adhere to the best practices.

Easy Crawling for Search Engines

One of the critical Google search engine ranking factors is the use of a sitemap. It helps a search engine to index the web pages more thoroughly and quickly. It provides better visibility of the web pages to the users. The crawlers can understand the structure of the website better and can ascertain where the pages are located. You can utilize software like Screaming Frog to check the presence of the sitemap.

You must also check the Sitemap section at the Google Search Console to inform you if the sitemap was submitted and the number of indexed URLs. It can also notify you if there are any problems encountered. You can also check the sitemap for errors by using various XML validator tools.

The robots.txt file allows the crawlers to understand the URLs they can access on the site. The instructions enable the crawlers to understand the URLs that are allowed or disallowed from being crawled. If you have any pages that you do not wish to be crawled can be mentioned in this file.

The Site Must be Responsive

As the number of mobile users increases, search engines like Google ensure that the websites provide a seamless experience for them. Therefore, website developers must ensure that the website can be viewed seamlessly on all devices by the visitors. If it does not, the SEO rank of your website is bound to fall.

Mobile responsiveness has become one of the critical google search engine ranking factors since 2015. Google has plans to move all sites to mobile-first indexing and crawling. It would mean developers must consider the mobile design, too, as Google would use this version to rank websites. In addition, you can use the Search Console to check if there are any mobile-related errors on the site.

The Page Load Speed Should be Optimal

Are you aware that most of your visitors will wait for only three seconds for a website to load? These visitors will move to your competition and may never return to your site. Moreover, the bounce rate will increase and is an important SEO ranking factor too. You can use various tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix to inform you about the page load speeds.

One of the main optimizing factors would be to identify the heavy images. You must use plug-ins to ensure the photos are of optimal size. If the images are optimized correctly, it can help to increase site speed.

Use an SSL Certificate

Google had come up with an update in 2014 that showed its preference towards secure websites. The update stated that if all other factors remained the same, Google would prefer HTTPS websites. It is mainly as the certificates that install an SSL certificate encrypt the communication exchanged with the visitor's browser. This update is in line with Google’s mission towards a safer internet browsing experience for its users.

The Use of Schema Markup

An essential factor that SEO executives must remember is the use of Schema Markup. It helps the search engine to have a better knowledge about specific sections of the text. It is ideal when you plan to do local SEO. You can also use it to inform Google where your business is located.

You can use it to present meaningful information to Google about a web page. If you use the schema markup intelligently, you can get into Google Knowledge Graph. It also helps in showing up visually enhanced search results for your website. It also supports semantic search and enhances the authoritativeness of your website.

On-page SEO Ranking Factors

There are also specific Google ranking factors that are more page-specific.
 
Use of Relevant Keywords

All SEO experts will tell you about ensuring that your website content is written, keeping the relevant keywords in mind. The keywords essentially search terms used by users and form the basis of the content on your website. Most marketers also feel it is a high-impact driver of website traffic and is among the key Google ranking factors. When writing content for a page, always keep in mind that you can have only 4 - 5 keywords on a page. Also, keep the keyword density best practices in mind.

The Need for High-Quality Content

One of the critical Google ranking factors is the high quality of content on the website. The content must be fresh, unique, and helpful for users. While you must ensure it is optimized for SEO, always ensure that it must be valuable for the website visitors. 

You must create original content and always undertake a duplicate check before publishing on your site. It would be best if you considered the length of the content too. While there is no word limit set for the content, it must neither be too short nor should it be too long. Most SEO plug-ins require your content to be a minimum of 300 words. Apart from the content quality, it must be well-organized and structured using proper tags. 

Optimizing the Title Tags and Meta Description

The title tags and the meta description show up on the Google SERP that allows a user to understand the web page's contents. You must ensure that you optimize the content you write here to help you draw more visitors to your website. You can use the keywords here as well.

Google can pull the information to create snippets that preview the content on the page relating to the search term used. You can also use the keywords for the image alt-text, and if you optimize it, you can also move the images higher up during image search. Also, do not use jumbled-up URLs as they are not SEO-friendly. If the URL has a simple structure, is concise, and contains the optimized keyword, it will be easier to rank these pages higher in search ranking.

Off-Page Ranking Factors

The search ranking of your website is also dependent on few entities outside your website. Some of them are other high domain authority (DA) websites, social media, etc.

Use of Social Bookmarking

The foundation of the ranking algorithm requires you to ensure that your website has backlinks from high DA websites. It is an essential SEO ranking factor, and you must also keep in mind that the backlinks must be relevant and related to the content on your website. While you may have backlinks from high DA sites, you must also ensure that the backlinks are fresh. It is because the users prefer the latest news. However, it will depend on the search term used.

The Search Intent

One thing that Google does is that it does not rank the same content for all queries. The ranking also varies according to the search intent of the user. For example, if you are looking for a "how-to" guide, the web pages shown to you will differ when you search for the best gadgets. The content types are also critical for the search engine when it is ranking the web pages. The search engine also checks whether the piece of content covers what the user is expecting to see.

Conclusion

The search algorithm covers various factors that SEO managers must consider ensuring their website ranks high during a keyword search. While the number of such parameters may total over 200, we have covered the top SEO ranking factors believed to be used by Google.

If you are planning to design a new website, you must keep these factors in mind. You can also take the services of a professional web design and development company and discuss with their subject matter experts on these parameters.