Matt Cutts stated that over time, backlinks will become a little less important, as Google is looking for new ways to evaluate websites. Nevertheless, for the time being, backlinks still carry the most value. This makes SEO a cost-effective and sustainable strategy for businesses looking to build a strong online presence.

Local SEO ranking factors: Your complete guide

For example, when I search for the term ‘sustainable phone case’, these results are shown by Google. Based on my search term and the intent behind it, Google deems these results the best ones found in its index. According to Moz, title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content.

• So, improve your site’s speed, simplify navigation, and make sure your content is easy to find.
• An SEO ranking is a webpage’s organic (unpaid) position for a search engine query.
• Now, get discovered in these search experiences with generative engine optimization (GEO) services from our award-winning team behind this research.
• If a user watched a video for 5 minutes and a second user watched it for 4 minutes, the total watch time is 9 minutes.
• It has been widely believed that the length of your URL has a negative impact on rankings.

Interestingly, having a Google Business Profile was cited as the #1 ranking factor for small businesses in a recent survey of marketers. Let’s look at these 3 types of links to understand how and why they can affect your rankings. For any given keyword, the articles ranking at the top are deemed the best on the subject.

The most basic signal that information is relevant is when content contains the same keywords as your search query. Because of that, getting more social shares does help your search engine rankings, if only indirectly. So when you optimize titles, descriptions, and content to get the clicks and deliver value on the other end, you can boost your search engine ranking. Longer content attracts more links and shares too, which are two other important SEO ranking signals we’ll cover shortly.

The many factors that can affect rankings in the local pack (AKA Google Local Finder) are some of the most critical to local businesses, so any shifts in importance must be closely monitored. At Whitespark’s Local Search Summit in September 2020, Darren Shaw announced the initial findings of his latest Local Search Ranking Factors survey. It is not only important how high a video ranks, the keywords take also care of where they rank and on which topic.

#9 – Autogenerated / AI Content

Improving your website’s load times and ensuring it is mobile-friendly are essential steps in optimizing your site for search engines and providing a superior user experience. By addressing the common issues outlined and implementing the suggested solutions, you can significantly enhance your website’s SEO performance and stand out in the competitive digital landscape. Technical SEO is a foundational aspect of any comprehensive SEO strategy. They help ensure that your website and its content are visible, relevant, and accessible to your target audience through search engines. By understanding and strategically using keywords, you can significantly enhance your website’s potential to attract and engage visitors. On-page SEO (or on-site SEO) is optimizing individual web pages to rank higher in search engines.

It focuses on content quality, keyword placement, meta tags, URL structure, and internal linking. They want to make sure that users find your content valuable and easy to interact with. If your site is slow, cluttered, or hard to navigate, you’ll fall behind. SEO experts used to closely monitor ranking positions, clicks, website traffic and stats like bounce rates.

This check also includes formatting and encourages the best practice of making content SEO Anomaly scannable (i.e., easy to skim and read on digital screens). Before creating new content, it’s wise to choose a main topic (keyword) for your page. Research by BrightLocal shows that most shoppers check Google Reviews before choosing a business to patronize and that Google Reviews is the most trusted review platform. Google uses metrics (called Core Web Vitals) to assess performance and speed.

Plus, many studies have found a strong correlation between links and organic traffic. Search engine optimization focuses on improving a website and its content, while pay-per-click advertising focuses on improving an ad campaign and its ads. Encourage customers to leave reviews on Google, as well as other relevant third-party review sites.

Content Strategy

From keyword optimization and content quality, each factor is important in how Google evaluates and ranks your website. This process ensures that your content is not only valuable and relevant but also structured to make it easily discoverable and understandable by search engines. Page experience is a ranking factor that Google uses to evaluate the overall quality of a user’s interaction with a web page. Overusing a single type, especially exact-match keywords, can appear manipulative to search engines and may lead to penalties. Therefore, it’s essential to focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks rather than gathering many low-quality ones. You can use Rank Math’s Topic Research AI tool to create in-depth, well-optimized articles that cater to your audience’s needs and improve your website’s SEO performance.