The last question may be the most difficult to answer, but it’s also one of the most important. Certain topics, such as medical and financial queries, can be especially challenging to rank for in Google. In truth, there are thousands of articles, guides, and tutorials published about SEO every year. Most of these guides are either very introductory or broad, or go to the opposite end of the spectrum and cover a very specific topic. The majority of real businesses have physical brick & mortar premises.

• Therefore, to optimize your impact on search engine rankings, it’s essential to proactively manage your citations.
• Local ranking factors related to personalization have remained steady since 2018, after peaking in perceived importance in 2017.
• The quality of links to the landing page URL named on the Google My Business listing is also important.
• ’ won’t stay on the page as soon as their problem has been solved.
• Whether you’re running a blog, an online store, or a local business site, understanding SEO can increase your reach and success.

Content, keywords, and authority were all Google ranking factors related to on-page SEO. When it comes to off-page SEO ranking factors, however, nothing holds more weight than a strong backlink profile. Google ranking factors are signals, metrics, and other factors that Google uses to prioritize and rank search results for each search query. Optimized images enhance user experience by making content visually appealing. Proper alt text, image file names, and image compression can improve loading speed and ensure extra value for search rankings.

Adding pictures, videos, charts, and other eye-catching visuals makes it more attractive for visitors and improves its appearance in search results. However, with advancements in AI and natural language processing, you’ll need to think beyond individual keywords. SEO without it is like a beautiful new sports car without an engine; it might look nice, but it’s going nowhere. E-E-A-T is particularly important if results could impact the user’s health, finances, or safety. In other words, if the search topic is a Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topic.

We based this conclusion on the fact that highly specific queries with four or five search terms are not returning results for highly trafficked websites. However, even for these smaller sites, fast websites with lower TTFB are consistently ranked higher than slower websites with higher TTFB. Unfortunately, the exact definition of “site speed” remained open to speculation. The mystery widened further in June, when Google’s Matt Cutts announced that slow-performing mobile sites would soon be penalized in search rankings as well.

Addressing Keyword Stuffing and other Black Hat SEO techniques

E-E-A-T is made up of a series of refining signals that underline everything that Google has been trying to achieve with better user experience and fighting misinformation. E-E-A-T is part of the Google Quality Search Raters Guidelines and not so much a ranking factor, but it is a guideline. In 2018, BERT created waves in the SEO industry as a significant update for Google that was reported to impact about 10% of search queries at the time. This is part of the rank refining where Google will try to return the most relevant results to a query. It also allows Google to return results for queries with no previous record of searches.

Engaging with related questions linked to your keyword can also capture additional search intent. Keeping an eye on these elements is essential for maximizing your SEO efforts and capturing organic traffic effectively. Monitoring your keyword rankings is essential for understanding your SEO performance. You can utilize tools like Serpple, which provide affordable solutions to track your keyword metrics efficiently without incurring high costs. This guide will help you navigate the steps necessary to check your keyword rankings effectively.

Heading tags have made the top ten lists of ranking factors for several decades. But if you look at the search engine results pages (SERPs) you’ll see that’s not the case. Anyone who argues otherwise is denying what exists in front of their eyes. But personalization doesn’t play much of a role in either local pack or local organic rankings – and SEO Anomaly there’s very little you can do to optimize for this. When looking at local organic factors, the quality of links is by far the most valuable factor affecting rankings. Keywords in the anchor text of links is also very important, while diversity, and quantity of links from industry-specific or local sites also sit in the top 15 local organic factors.

Why SEO Matters for Your Business in 2025

Don’t link to unrelated websites and sites that have been deindexed or penalized by Google. Your external backlinks are recommendations to your users and have to be of very high quality. There are millions of websites competing with you for higher rankings and more organic traffic. To compile our list of the top SEO ranking factors, we looked at a variety of sources–-including our own in-house experts and other popular lists. By optimizing content, fixing technical issues, and creating a better user experience, you can not only rank higher in search results but can also help you to maximize SEO ROI. Some of the most important ones are content quality, backlinks, page experience, and mobile-friendliness.

Contact and Business Information

Modern Google ranking factors favor content that naturally incorporates relevant keywords, not forced repetition. Overusing keywords can not only confuse readers but also lead to penalties, which ultimately harm your SEO ranking. To avoid this, focus on creating meaningful, high-quality content that includes keywords naturally. SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of improving a website’s visibility in organic search results on Google and Bing, or other search engines. SEO involves researching search queries, creating helpful content, and optimizing the user experience to improve organic search rankings. As we have seen, back-end performance and TTFB directly correlate to search engine ranking.