Googles top ranking factors 2021
Google currently has over 200 different ranking factors they use to measure when trying to work out where exactly to place your website in the search engine results.
Today Google is the most popular search engine in the world. If you’re not listed high in their search engine listings your website is simply not going to get much organic search engine traffic.
The only way your website is going to get any visits is if your address is listed in the newspaper, a business card or if you have a listing in a local web directory.
Search engine optimisation is big business. It can also be very expensive and a very slow process.
We have listed what we believe are the top ranking factors Google uses to consider where your website will be placed in its search engine.
The Sandbox Period.
When a new domain name registered. It has no domain authority and starts it lifecycle out in whats called the sandbox period.
A domain in the sandbox generally will not be ranked in the search engines. It needs some time to age after it's been born.
Ranking Factors
1. Quality Content
Content is king when it comes to search engine rankings. The more informative and useful your content is to the reader the higher that content will be ranked.
If you create content that is unique, original and helpful to the user you’re going to see an increase in organic web traffic.
It doesn’t matter how well your website is optimised, if your content has no value to the user then you cannot expect higher rankings.
2. Backlinks.
Running just behind content as the number one ranking factor for search engine placement is an off page metric referred to as backlinks.
Why are backlinks so important?
Backlinks or inbound links act as a vote or a signal. When Google adds up these votes they will calculate the relevancy and popularity of your website.
When other websites place a link to your site this is counted as a vote.
The more backlinks (votes) your site has the higher your site will be placed in the index.
If you have backlinks from high authority websites they are more powerful.
Not every backlink found on the internet will be considered in the voting system.
Google tends to only count relevant backlinks. For example, if you have a hair dressing business and your website backlink is found on a lawn mowing site it won’t be regarded as relevant therefore the link won’t carry much power or (Link Juice)
3. Website loading speed.
Website speed adds to the overall user experience. Nobody likes a slow loading website as it causes frustration for the user. Much of the time when a site is loading slowly the user will (bounce) from that site meaning they will stop the site from loading by moving onto a different search or site. Google is able to detect this and when they do the user experience level drops. Therefore further reducing your website rankings.
Faster loading websites tend to be listed higher in the search results. Google constantly measures the speed your website loads.
You can actually test the speed at which your website is loading using free tools online. Two of the best and most common tools are.
Google PageSpeed Insights
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
GTmetrix
https://gtmetrix.com/
The speed at which your wesbite loads can come down to several different facotrs. The main focus on your site speed comes down to your web hosting provider, where your website is geographically located, how many websites are on the same web hosting server, the speed of the data centre and several other configurable hosting options.
The overall structure of your site also impacts on site speed. If you have images and graphics on your site with a large file size this will greatly impact on the speed at which your website loads. Often web developers will concerntrate on the reduction of file sizes on websites to insure optimal load times.
4. Keyword optimisation
Further from creating good content and backlinks, one of the most important ranking factors is the use of keywords on your website.
A keyword is the search term typed into Google when a user is searching for a website. It’s a top priority that your website contains the exact keywords your audience is search for. This is the way Google brings up your site in the search results.
5. User experience
This is the last top ranking factor we recommend you concentrate your website ranking efforts on.
Google uses an artificial intelligence (AI) program called RankBrain. This incorporates many other ranking signals such as
CTR (click-through-rate)
How many people clicks on your listing when it comes up in the search results.
Bounce Rate
When you have a high bounce rate this is not a good thing.
If a user clicks on your site and then immediately closes it because they don’t like what they see will cause lower search engine rankings.
Dwell Time.
This measures how long a website visitor stays on your website.
Website and Domain Name Ranking Elements
Domain name metrics.
Here are six common metrics that professional search engine optimisation experts use to manually check the overall power and authority of your domain name and website. These metrics are also checked on the websites that are linking to your site in order to mesure the effectiveness and power of a backlink.
1. DA (Domain Authority)
2. DR (Domain Rating)
3. TF (Trust Flow)
4. CT (Citation Flow)
5. SS (Spam Score)
6. UR (URL Rating)
Disavowing backlinks
Every great search engine optimisation expert will check your current websites backlink profile. They do this to identify bad toxic backlinks pointing to your website. That's right, backlinks not all being created equal can actually cause harm to your website. An example of a toxic backlink would be a site that is linking to you that has absolutly no relevence in respect to your marketing niche.
Google provides a fantastic tool which enabless you to ask them not to take a certain backlink into there ranking factors. This tool is called "Disavow links"
Summary.
Google with its 200 ranking factors all impact on your search engine rankings.
Concentrating on 5 ranking measurements will most certainly have a positive impact on your website rankings, traffic and return on investment (ROI)
Performing "Search Engine Optimisation" on your website will greatly assist with the amount of traffic your site will receive.