Top 10 Google Ranking Factors You Must Execute for SEO Success in 2024

Have you ever wondered how Google decides which websites to rank at the top of its search results pages? It’s a question that has puzzled most of the website owners and digital marketers for years. Is it all about keywords? Backlinks? Social media presence? Or is it just a matter of luck? 

But the truth is Google uses a very complex algorithm that takes hundreds of google top ranking factors into account when determining where to place your website in search results.

HEAR THIS OUT! 

The #1 search result on Google gets more than 39% of all clicks. That means if your website isn’t at the top, you could miss out on a lot of potential traffic. And this meme will perfectly go for your website.

But don’t worry. In this blog, I’ll break down the top 10 Google ranking factors you need to execute for SEO success in 2024. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a better understanding of how to optimize your website and attract more traffic from search engines.

So, let’s get started!

What are Google Ranking Factors?

Want your website to rank higher in search engine result pages and attract more traffic? Well, to achieve this, you have to understand Google ranking factors.

One of the most important things you need to understand is the concept of Google ranking factors. These ranking factors in SEO are the various criteria that Google’s search ranking algorithm considers when determining which web pages to display in response to a user’s search query.

Some examples of ranking factors in SEO include:

• Content relevance: Does your content match the user’s search intent and provide valuable information?
• Backlinks: Do other reputable websites link to your site, indicating that it’s a trustworthy source of information?
• Page load speed: Does your site load quickly on both desktop and mobile devices?
• Mobile-friendliness: Is your site optimized for mobile devices, ensuring a positive user experience?

As a result, optimizing these google organic ranking factors can dramatically improve your chances of appearing at the top of search results and driving more traffic to your website.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn how to rank your website at the top of Google. Just watch this out! 

With this, I am expecting that now you must be inquisitive to know the top ranking factors in SEO. So let’s begin with them…

List of Most Important Google Ranking Factors in 2024

I have distributed these ranking factors into four different types of categories.

1. On-Page SEO Ranking Factors

2. Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors

3. Technical SEO Ranking Factors

4. Local SEO Ranking Factors

On-Page SEO Ranking Factors

1. Provide Unique & High-Quality Content

Investing in high-quality content may take time and effort, but it’s worth it. After all, high-quality content is the foundation of successful SEO. In fact, Google has confirmed that it’s one of the most important ranking factors.

But what makes content “high-quality”? It’s not just about having a lot of words on your page. 

Instead, it’s about creating content that’s unique, fresh, trustworthy, and most importantly “helpful to your audience.”

I’m sure your audience would love sifting through pages and pages of meaningless fluff just to find the information they need. Well, let’s be serious. Having content that’s trustworthy, readable, fresh, and matches the intent of the user can improve your SEO, increase your website traffic, and ultimately lead to more business success. 

To start with, research common questions among your target audience, and create content that provides the answers. For this, use keyword research tools like SEMrush and monitor the ongoing trends to identify relevant topics.

So what’s the bottom line? Well,  if you want to get more traffic to your website, you need to create content that’s trustworthy, unique, and readable. For that, you need to have a content planning strategy in place that helps you stay organized and focused on what you need to do to create content that contains all the above-mentioned factors.

Are you ready to learn the secrets to creating content that not only ranks well on Google but also engages and converts your audience? Watch our video now and master the art of content writing!

2. Keyword Placement and Optimization

While considering original content an important ranking factor, including keywords on your website, is another essential element of successful search engine ranking optimization.

Before effectively using keywords, first, it’s crucial to determine the right search terms that your target audience is searching for and later incorporate those keywords into your website’s content in a natural and relevant way. 

This will help Google to understand your website and ensure that your website appears in the search results when your audience types in relevant keywords.

However, it’s important to remember that keyword stuffing or overusing keywords can actually harm your website’s ranking. Therefore, it’s important to use keywords in a strategic and meaningful way that matches the user’s search intent.

The image below shows how to use keywords effectively in your content.

To track your website’s keyword performance, consider using tools like Google Analytics or SEMrush to monitor your keyword rankings and adjust your keyword strategy accordingly.

Read More: How To Monitor SEO Rankings: Tools & KPIs

3. Image Optimization

With visual content becoming increasingly popular, it’s important to ensure that your images are optimized to rank higher in search engines. And what if I tell you that optimizing your images for SEO can significantly improve your website’s visibility in both regular and image search results? 

So if you want to rank in search engines, just follow these simple image optimization tips to make your images work harder for your website’s SEO and boost your online visibility.

• To start, make sure to assign alt text to your images. This text alternative allows search engines like Google to “see” the image and understand its content. Ensure to keep the alt text short and descriptive.

• In addition, compress and resize your images to ensure they load quickly and don’t slow down your website’s performance. Using an image compressor like “Photopea” can help reduce file sizes to 70-100KB or less, and saving images as WebP instead of PNG can also help. 

• But don’t just stop there! Make sure your images add value to your content. This means, instead of using generic stock images or graphics, use screenshots, videos, charts, and illustrations that support your content and help readers better understand it. This will not only improve the quality of your content but also keep your readers engaged and stay on your website longer.

• Lastly, include your target keyword not only in the alt text but also in the file name. Replace spaces with dashes to avoid untrustworthy-looking image links.

By following these simple tips, you can make your images work harder for your website’s SEO and boost your online visibility.

Learn More ➡️ 10 Ways To Make Your Images More Appealing

4. On-Page Experience 

Here’s another SEO ranking factor to keep in mind: the User Experience.

Now imagine when a user lands on your website but finds it difficult to navigate or find what they are looking for. Ultimately, the reader will leave your website and never return, leading to a high bounce rate.

But before that, another important google ranking factor that you need to keep in mind is the click-through rate (CTR). They help Google determine whether users find your website relevant and useful based on their search query. 

These factors help Google assess the quality of your website’s content and user experience, which can impact your search ranking. Therefore, it’s essential to ensure your website’s content is engaging and relevant to your target audience to increase your click-through rate and dwell time.

Read More: How Does User Experience Affect SEO?

Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors

1. Backlinks

Acquiring high-quality backlinks is an important SEO factor for increasing your website’s search engine ranking and driving organic traffic that Google considers when determining the authority and relevance of your website. So, if you want to rank higher on Google, you should get links from high-authority websites.

LISTEN UP!

The reason behind this is simple: Most of the pages (around 66.31%) have No Backlinks at all!

Therefore, rather than just focusing on acquiring as many links as you can, you should concentrate on acquiring links from high-quality, high-authority websites.

This means creating original, high-quality content that adds value to your audience and automatically generates natural backlinks.

Overall, building a strong backlink profile takes time and effort, but it is essential for improving your website’s SEO and driving organic traffic to your business. So, you need to make sure your link-building strategy is well-thought-out and focused on quality over quantity.

2. Social Media Presence  

Delivering high-quality content is a highly effective approach to gaining exposure for your website on social media platforms and reaching your target audience. When popular individuals such as influencers and bloggers engage with your content on social media, it sends a strong signal to search engines that your content is valuable and authoritative, making it more likely to appear in relevant search results.

Technical SEO Ranking Factors

1. Mobile Friendliness 

Have you noticed that most of your online browsing is now happening on your smartphone? Going by the numbers, as of the fourth quarter of 2022, mobile traffic accounted for a whopping 59.16 percent of global traffic. This means that if your website is not mobile-friendly, you may be losing out on potential customers. 

In fact, mobile-friendliness has become one of the most important ranking factors for Google. They’ve even started mobile-first indexing, which means that your website’s performance on mobile devices determines your ranking more than desktop performance.

So, to rank well in Google and attract mobile users, make sure your website is designed with mobile responsiveness in mind. If you’re not sure whether your site is mobile-friendly or not, check out the mobile-friendly test tool on Google’s website.

Important:

Double-check that your images are clear, your text fits on the screen, and your website doesn’t have giant walls of text that cover the entire screen.

2. Website Speed

Have you ever felt frustrated when clicking on a Google search result and having to wait for what seems like an eternity for the page to load? If you have, just think of your readers and how they feel when a similar experience when they click on your website.

Nowadays, people expect lightning-fast results and are less willing to wait for slow-loading websites. With the rise of mobile and voice search, users are searching for quick answers to their questions on the go. Therefore, it’s crucial to optimize your website for speed.

To measure your website’s load time, you can use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool. It also provides tips on how to improve your site speed and make it more user-friendly. 

3. Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are not just a tie-breaker in Google’s ranking algorithm, they have a significant impact on many factors related to SEO. These metrics directly affect the usability of your website, as they gauge the user experience, page speed, and content quality, which ultimately affects the conversion rate.

For example, the loading speed of a page affects the user experience and your bounce rate. Therefore, by optimizing these metrics, you can enhance the overall user experience of your website, and in turn, improve your search engine ranking.

4. Website Structure & Security

If you have launched a newly built website, it’s essential to consider your website’s structure. That’s because your website’s architecture plays a crucial role in how Google crawls and indexes your website.  

To speed up the indexing of new and updated content, you can create a sitemap in WordPress. “A sitemap contains all the important pages that you want search engines to know about.” 

Sitemaps help Google crawlers navigate through your website, discover new content, and index your pages

You can have more than one sitemap on your site. For example, if you use the WordPress plugin, All in One SEO, you can easily create special sitemaps for video and news content. This can boost your rankings for those particular types of content in Google searches.

Another way to help Google index your website is by optimizing your WordPress robots.txt file. A robots.txt file provides a pathway for Google bots and tells them how to crawl and index your website. It identifies which pages search engine spiders should crawl and which they should avoid. As a result, you’ll save crawl quota and prevent bots from going through unnecessary pages, such as the admin page.

For more information on how to optimize your robots.txt file for SEO, check out this complete tutorial “Best Practices For Robots.txt SEO”

In addition to site architecture, site security is now a crucial factor for Google rankings. To meet security requirements, it’s essential to use HTTPS protocol, which encrypts data between your website and a user’s browser.

In 2014, Google confirmed HTTPS as a ranking signal. This meant if your site doesn’t have an SSL certificate and is still using “http://” in its URL, it’s time to update.

Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding and implementing the most important Google ranking factors can have a significant impact on the success of your website. 

While climbing the search results pages takes time and ongoing effort, optimizing your site’s structure, content, and security can help you earn trust, build brand awareness, increase traffic, and drive revenue.

But remember, SEO is not a one-time task but a continuous process of adapting to changing algorithms and user behavior. By mastering the fundamentals and staying up-to-date with industry trends, you can stay ahead of the competition and achieve long-term success.

So, take the time to regularly audit and improve your website’s SEO, and don’t forget to use the best Google ranking checker tools to track your progress. With persistence and the right strategy, you can achieve your goals and rank higher in Google’s search results.