It is one important part of SEO. Many people feeling curiosity on how Google ranking factors work on websites. Your website will not get the best results without Ranking factors. So, learn and apply the ranking factors on your website to get the good rankings to your page.


1. ACCESSING URL
In SEO, the first ranking factor is checking do you have the right kind of URL or not. If u have the right kind of URL google bot's can easily reach your URL and crawl it. It means Google bots can visit your URL and look for the page content to understand what the page is about. To help the bots out, you will need

Create Robots.txt: This text file can tell to Google bot's which pages it can or cannot look for site information.

Create Sitemap: It lists all your pages. If you are running a WordPress site you can set up a sitemap via YOAST SEO. If not, you can use an online sitemap generator

Apart from that, Google has been promoting better web security from many years by introducing the HTTPS, as SEO ranking signal in 2014. With some more changes on the horizon to explicitly on flag sites (as secure or not secure, that signal will affect the visitor's perception and potential search engine ranking. If you not done you're Secure as secure, it’s time to enable SSL (Secure sockets layer) security.

2. PAGE SPEED (INCLUDING MOBILE SPEED)
Page speed is one of the important SEO ranking factors for years. Definitely, Google wants to improve users experience and fast loading web pages.

Recently, Google announced a Search engine algorithm update and this algorithm mainly focused on Mobile page speed. The speed update will start in July 2018 to affect sites. If your page does not load fast it will be penalized.

Google “mobile-friendly tool” to check how much your page is mobile-friendly. If you are using WordPress site, boost your page by visiting "https://www.wpbeginner.com/wordpress-performance-speed/"

3. USER EXPERIENCE (RANK BRAIN)
Google uses artificial intelligence to better rank for web pages. It called that signal Rank brain. The other signals that affect the search ranking

• Click through rate – the percentage of people click to visit your site after your page is listed in search results.
• Bounce rate – the number of people leave your website without viewing all pages, means your page did not give any information about what they need. If enough people do this, it’s difficult to rank your site on search results.
• Dwell time – how much time they spent on your page after they arrived (it tells Google your content is relevant to their search).

4. DOMAIN AGE, URL AND AUTHORITY
Nearly 60% of the sites that have a top ten Google search ranking for three years or more. As per Ahrefs study, millions of sites suggests that very few sites less than a year old to achieve that ranking.

The Google has been penalized for exact match domains and that penalty is generally for spamming sites with thin content. The important thing is where target keywords is in the URL.

Other research shows that exact match domains that are deemed to be valuable, high quality and relevant can see a ranking boost. However, if you already have an established website no need to look for an exact match domain, focus on URL that reflects your business.

Talking on the subject of Search engine ranking factors, authority matters. It usually a combination of great content and OFF-page SEO signals like social shares and inbound links.

Moz developed by Page authority and Domain authority and it ranges from 0 to 100. Here you can know how likely a particular page or domain is to rank in search results.

5. OPTIMIZED CONTENT
It is one of the top-ranking factors in SEO. Many people are looking for fresh and quality content because it gives the best results. Mainly Google search algorithms depend on keywords. These keywords are words and phrases people use these words for searches what they are looking for and describe the what about the site is. Use keywords in your content for the best results and be aware of Duplicate content.

1. Use LSI Keywords

2. Understand search intent
It is an important part of Content Optimization. Understanding the people what they are looking for when type in a search. For example, people use the word “compare” they have a decision to buying a product. If they use Word “buy” they are going to purchase.

The keywords people use will change depending on what they are looking for
            • Find a particular website (Navigational)
            • Finding an answer for question (informational)
            • Finding information before going to purchase (investigational)
            • Making a purchase (transactional)

3. Get the Content-length right
Many people are looking for relevant content at the same time content length also matters. Content length also improves your results and rankings. Stretching the content is not advisable. While writing the more content, the subject is in depth. That content looks more links and shares.

As per research 2000 - 3000 words of content gets the best search rankings and your page in the top ten positions.

4. Optimize for answer boxes
Google going to increase delivering answers for queries via answer boxes. So it’s another aspect of optimizing for better search engine rankings.

Optimizing for search boxes means
            • Answering questions, of course
            • Include those questions as headings, with properly formatted title tags
            • Ensure that answer is correct, relevant and not too long
            • Focusing on content to catchphrases that as of now have answer boxes
            • Including lists or tables

5. Using video for Ranking
By 2021, As per Cisco, video will speak to an incredible 80% of online traffic.
            • Mostly, all age groups are watching videos.
            • Almost 79% of the people watching videos compare to reading blog posts.
            • People are using videos to help them to make a decision to purchase (transactional searches)

Video will read, shared and linked to providing plenty of signals to amplify search ranking.

ranking factors

6. TECHNICAL SEO
            • Mention keywords in page titles
            • Use right header tags (h1, h2)
            • Optimize meta description
            • Use keywords in image alt tags
            • Use schema markup

7. SOCIAL SIGNALS
When people share your content on social networks that it’s valuable. Cognitive SEO’s study of 23 million shares found definite links on social shares and search engine ranking.

Social shares are not a direct ranking factor as officially said by Google. Links from Twitter or Facebook are not counted as same the links from authoritative sites. But, most of the top listed pages have a lot of shares in social networks, so decline it.

By sharing more content, more people will see and decide to link it and you will get more social shares it’s better to improve search engine ranking, if only indirectly.

Not only have a social media presence yourself, but also make it easy to share your content and amplify the social signals.


8. LINKS
The web is built with links, so natural links are crucial SEO ranking signal. The links are
            • Inbound links
            • Outbound links
            • Internal links

9. MOBILE FRIENDLINESS
It is another major ranking factor because now-a-days most of the people are accessing the web through mobiles rather than desktops. For this reason, Google has been changed to mobile friendliness is one of the ranking factor for search results.

Now-a-days, Mobiles first index in Google is a reality its drawing more results from mobile-optimized sites first, rather than the sites geared to desktop computers. Make sure that your website is mobile optimized otherwise you will lose your mobile users.

Important things to look:
            1. You have a responsive website it automatically fits in the mobile device.
            2. For easy readability on small screens use large fonts.
            3. For easy Accessibility and Navigation include tab menus.
            4. make sure that your important content isn't hidden by interstitial ads.

To improve Google search ranking on mobile-friendly design to improve your mobile conversion rate.

10. REAL BUSINESS INFORMATION
            • Name, address and phone number
            • Accurate business listings
            • Customer reviews
            • Optimize for local search