SEO is the most significant pillar to boosting revenues, building an online presence and enhancing online visibility. So, let’s talk about the crucial Google ranking factors in 2022 every marketer must follow.
SEO ranking factors are a lot more important today since around 93% of all internet activity begins with a search. And search engines are responsible for 68% of those. This requires a brand or business to stand out in SERP (search engine results page) to become prominent in those searches.
Important SEO stats
However, a lot of things in SEO are easier said than done, particularly, understanding what it takes to rank in search engines. So, which choices are a crucial ranking factor? What are its types? Let's find out.
1 . What Are Google Ranking Factors?
Google is the primary search engine, holding 91.94% of the entire search engine market. This should tell you the importance of Google’s ranking factors, i.e. their laws and rules about SEO.
Google’s variating, but domineering market share in 2022
So, when Google makes rules or changes its algorithms, global SEO experts tend to follow those bylaws.
However, understanding Google's ranking factors isn't difficult—without being too technical. You'd surely have some issues if you're looking for technical aspects. But, besides changing a few algorithms or alerting a few rules, the principles always remain the same. Which are:
- Good quality content makes the first page of SERP
- The informative value defines good quality content
- Backlinks and interlinks—earned as a vote of confidence from high-authority websites
- On-page optimization for content and SEO technicalities
- Page speed and optimization, including mobile-phone performance and compatibility
- Originality and uniqueness of the content
These are some of the laws that a website must abide by. And Google's crawlers look for these factors as they index pages for the first SERP.
2 . Types Of Google Ranking Factors
Google's crucial ranking factors can be divided into various aspects. To understand them thoroughly, we'll try categorizing each crucial factor in a particular category. This gives us these 3 types of Google ranking factors:
2.1 On-Page Ranking Factors
On-page SEO is the primary tactic for optimizing a site and web content for search engines, as well as for users. Here are three main factors in this category:
2.1.1 Quality Content
Quality content is the first thing that Google's crawlers look for. As mentioned before, this requires the content to feature:
- Informative value
- High readability
- Excellent content tone
- The portrayal of key elements (Regarding the topic)
- In-depth perspective/analysis
- Formatting such as headings, subheadings, bullet points, etc.
- Grammatical competence
Therefore, if any content has all these attributes, it's tending to be one of the key factors of On-Page SEO, which is the good quality of content.
2.1.2 Keyword placement
Around 70% of keywords garner more than 10,000 searches a month. However, placing it correctly is more important than using the right keywords. So, where exactly do you need your keywords to be?
- In your title tags
- In the headline (headers)
- In the first sentence of paragraphs throughout the content
- In the meta description
- On the interlinks/outbound links
On top of that, it's important to ensure specific keyword density. It should be around 1-2% of your entire content. So, if your content is one thousand words, the keywords should be 10-30 of those words.
2.1.3 Image Optimization
Image optimization is one of the top 3 ranking factors you need to tend to. Why is that? Because image optimization enables you to make images look perfect on desktops, and mobile phones. Here's what you need to do:
- Resize the image to an ideal size and pixels.
- Optimize the file name with keywords.
- Add an alt title.
- Include captions and use unique images.
And that should help you gain the attention of search engine crawlers.
2.2 Technical Google Ranking Factors
Now here are three technical Google ranking factors:
2.2.1 Page Speed
One of the key determinants of your website's success is page speed. On average, a website takes around 10 seconds to load on a desktop and 27 seconds on a mobile phone.
So, you need to optimize your website for better loading speeds. To do that, you can reduce the size of images, banners, buttons, or other elements that might hog the bandwidth of a visitor.
2.2.2. Mobile-friendliness
Just like page speed, mobile phone compatibility is important too. An average website takes 87% longer to load on mobile than on desktop. However, it's just about speed because other factors also come into play. So, what you need is:
- Images that adapt according to the screen resolution.
- Banners and backgrounds that change for desktop and mobile users.
- Adaptable overall alignment and font sizes.
- Tending to these factors will ensure your website is mobile-phone friendly.
2.2.3. Core Web Vitals
Core web vitals are another element Google thoroughly considers before ranking a website. This includes:So, tending to these three vitals is important, as they are vital to a website's inclusive user experience.
2.3. Off-Page Google Ranking Factors
Off-Page SEO is the final most crucial factor on this list. These are optimization tactics taken outside your domain to improve your search engine ranks. It includes:2.3.1 Backlinks
Backlinks are important, as they are considered the "vote of confidence" from another domain to yours. So, how do you gain them?- By asking other high-authority websites.
- Using outbound links by forming referral/affiliate marketing partnerships.
- Using Google Search Console Reports.
- Creating high-quality content that others might use as backlinks.
2.4. Most Important Factors
Before we wrap it up, it’s important to understand that out of all the factors mentioned, these are the two most important ones:2.4.1 Quality Content
- Quality content is the most important factor because over 90.93% of pages attract no traffic from Google. So, you’ll have to ensure your content quality is top-notch.
2.4.2 Mobile-Friendliness
According to Statista, more than 58% of all internet traffic comes from mobile phone users. That’s why it’s imperative for a website and content to be mobile-friendly.
Wrap up
The entire core of an SEO strategy depends on these factors. Since SEO is a sum of content and technical aspects, these ranking factors are the foundation of successful SEO strategies. They are also characteristic of top-ranked websites on SERP, with higher domain authority. At ConnectIn Digital, a Top SEO Agency in UAE, we thoroughly pay attention to these ranking factors. Our advanced strategies are thoroughly inclined toward these 7 crucial google ranking factors.
