Top 20+ On Page SEO Ranking Factors: The Definitive Guide

Through a past update of Google, it came to light that Google started to penalize all content mills, which later became very much catastrophic for many websites.

It was not the case that Google did not want any content, but it was looking for something better in the content. These contents should be unique, useful, and authoritative to the user.

This is something, which reliable local SEO companies have taken into notice, and with the on-page ranking factors, they will move a needle for their running business.

Today, we’ll read:

1. The Important Ranking Factors

a) The Direct Website Traffics
b) Keywords
c) Brand Queries
d) Visual Assets
e) User Experience
f) Title Tag
g) Dwell time: How to increase it?
h) Meta Description
i) Improving The Speed Of The Website
j) Geotagging (For Local Search)
k) Improving The Domain Authority
l) Image Optimization
m) URL Structure
n) The Backlinks
o) Responsive Design
p) Building a Secure Website
q) Links
r) The Content Development
s) Increase CTR with Schema Markup
t) Use Short, Keyword-Rich URLs
u) Relevancy

2. Things To Know About Google Ranking Factors

Let’s dive into it…..

The Important Ranking Factors

Several ranking factors are known to be important and hand-picked by experts. As you go through the checklist below, take your time to learn about each ranking factor and how it can provide a better user experience.

Given below are important factors you need to know about ranking your business.

1. The Direct Website Traffics

Google has the power to tell if your brand is credible enough just by looking at your website traffic.

Direct traffic comes in through users who access your website with the help of a bookmark.

Here, you can follow many crucial SEO trends to rank website.

However, the presence of direct traffic is very important and can impact the top ten positions in Google.

To make it simpler to understand, direct traffic indicates that users are well-informed about your business. They pay a visit to your website in search of new products, services, and updates.

This is a sign of brand awareness and trust from the side of consumers.

2. Keywords

The most common manner to tell them your site’s content answers a user’s question is in the language you use.

Pages that have keywords in a query, whether in the headings, body or both, are more probably to be niched with the search.

Sometimes this is convenient to analyze. If you are optimizing the site of a coffee shop, you are likely going to include keywords such as cappuccino, latte’, black coffee, and so on.

If it is a well-known coffee shop, you will have to ensure you are including long-tail, productive keywords for SEO.

Basically, you need to understand what your focused customers are looking for and develop content that involves the mentioned terms. It is always a result-oriented idea to do thorough research, so you are not missing out on a good opportunity.

3. Brand Queries

Google can point out a website with no name from the list of the brand website by checking the number of brand queries these websites possess.

However, the more individuals type the name of your brand in the search result, the stronger the brand will get in the eyes of Google.

Through a study, it has come to notice that when you have higher brand queries; it becomes much more important than the DA links.

Furthermore, this will help you improve website online presence for your business.

4. Visual Assets

Using videos, images, as well as infographics does more than just make your webpage visually engaging for visitors. It also provides you with chances to enhance your SEO.

More than 35% of consumers go for a visual search when they are buying something online. This clearly means that if you are not using images, you are lacking in attracting traffic.

Ensure you are optimizing your text on time.

Be aware of your image file sizes to decrease the chances of slow loading. Make your images in a way that they can be shared to analyze the opportunities for backlinking, which can immensely enhance your E.A.T. To understand it clearly, know what are backlinks.

5. User Experience

If you wish to elevate your business, the most powerful way to do so is by providing a good user experience.

Keep in mind, that online users will visit a website more often that is easy to navigate and will answer all their questions, in a digestible manner. The work of the user’s experience is not just about your brand’s quality, but it will help in the process of translating it to revenues.

This means that, if you invest around $4 in UX you will receive an ROI between $5-$200, respectively.

6. Title Tag

A title tag is an HTML tag- written <title>, under the <main> section- that mentions your page for search engines as well as real people. In search engines, titles appear in blue color that people click to navigate to your webpage.

They also occur at the top of browser tabs.

With professional SEO Experts, minor information on your website pages can have a huge influence on your rankings. Title tags, for example, may look unimportant, but they leave a bigger impact than you would think.

Just as the title of a book attracts you, a page’s meta title tag is the very first stone to step in for inviting people to click on your webpage in SERPs.

So, what do you mean by a title tag? The simple answer to this question is that it is an HTML tag that analyzed the title of a page.

7. Dwell time: How to increase it?

The dwell time is the total time spent by a user on a particular website, before returning to the SERPs. The dwell time holds a great deal of importance since Google will like to know about the content developed by powerful content creation experts that you are providing is beneficial for the users or not.

However, there are several ways through which you can increase the dwell time on your website. It is considered a smart yet delicate solution through which you balance the digest contents and provide information according to the needs of the user. Improve the dwell time, it can be done by

✓ Providing an engaging introduction for the users to read.

✓ Breaking the large paragraphs to make the content readable.

✓ Carry numerous sections, headings, and bullet points.

✓ The website should be mobile-friendly.

✓ Comprise high visual assets like images and videos.

✓ Providing answers to questions in an actionable manner.

Once there is a presence of the users on your website, make sure to deliver an easy website navigation system through accurate website SEO that will help the website receive increased pages per session.

8. Meta Description

Today, many individuals are claiming that meta description is not an on-page SEO ranking factor.

They might be partly right but the truth is that meta description enhances your approach to the readers in SERPs.

There are no negative impact of meta descriptions, therefore, you can add them to your site without any worries.

Despite their lack of use in big or comprehensive small business SEO, they do provide two major perks:

✓ They assist Google to know what your page is about

✓ They have a great influence on your CTRs.

Well-written meta descriptions provide searchers a good understanding of what your page is about, which in return increases your clickthroughs. Therefore, don’t avoid using them.

9. Improving The Speed Of The Website

When you are not a person with the technical information, you pass this on to your development team. Before you take any further steps, try to put the URL of your website into PageSpeed Insights, which is a free tool from Google itself.

This tool will help you check the loading speed of your website, and will also provide you with information to improve it.

There are many more cost free Google tools that can help you in checking website speed.

Remember, although the results might not be 100% accurate in the process, for which you can compare them with a different tool as well.

Google has promised to introduce a good and much better tool that will be much more accurate in the future.

However, what minimum speed your website requires to satisfy is changing constantly.

It can nowadays be met by meeting Google’s Core Web Vitals minimum threshold. If your website is not currently meeting such standards, there are various steps you can take, including:

✓ Validate compression.
✓ Decreasing redirects.
✓ Optimizing images.
✓ Enhancing browser caches.

10. Geotagging (For Local Search)

It might be a global economy, but the majority of businesses are still doing at a local level. Reach people in your neighborhood by optimizing your on-page SEO through worthwhile on page SEO techniques.

While this is less essential for corporations such as Pepsi or Maaza, for small-medium sized businesses, this is the essential part for increasing sales.

Listed below are three different SEO techniques that need to be considered when focusing on local traffic:

✓ Optimizing citations and local listings including address, name, and phone number, business descriptions, and website URL, using 3rd party apps, as well as getting reviews.

✓ Optimizing your local content, including accommodating for “_near me”, delivering location-based content, or investing in a local site or blog.

✓ Optimizing as well as creating links with other local businesses.

Ensure to mention the name of your target location in your keywords found through elite local keyword research and place them appropriately in your content.

11. Improving The Domain Authority

With each time passing, the more particular brand receives popularity and fame on the social platform. At this point, Google will only care about the website’s domain authority. On the other hand, if you wish to improve the DA, it will not be an easy task. If you are in for a long-term option, then there is still.

Given below are some of the ways to improve the domain authority. They are

✓ Building relationships with the help of links.

✓ Providing value through amazing content.

✓ Set your expectations.

With the above-mentioned points in your hand, you make sure to increase the domain authority for your website in no time.

However, these points are the only way that allows your website to receive a higher domain authority to take one of the first steps to rank higher in Google search.

12. Image Optimization

You might already know the importance of visual assets on your webpage and now it’s time to give more attention to their technical aspects.

Listed below are some tips to assist you to optimize yours:

✓ Include SEO-friendly alt tags.

✓ Select the correct format and size of the life for quick loading.

✓ Don’t use IMG_07659 as your file name.

✓ Make sure that all your images are mobile-friendly.

13. URL Structure

Earlier, URLs played a huge role in credible link building for SEO. Experts would ensure their keywords were added to web addresses to assist them rank at a good position in SERP.

But Google has changed the algorithm. And what was then so vital for ranking, now doesn’t play a bigger role.

It doesn’t matter now. Search engines are still adding your URLs to your overall score. It’s just that they do not have the same effect they once did.

However, there is proof they play a very important role in a website’s initial ranking, and some experts believe that they are used to group pages.

It means that whether or not they are your top SEO priority, you still can’t ignore them. This will give you real advantages of SEO.

14. The Backlinks

The important ranking factor above all the other factors is the backlinks.

A good set of backlinks that points toward your website holds great importance. It is said that the top link in Google search results has double referring domains compared to the content that is positioned at no.10.

15. Responsive Design

The results of mobile search volume left behind the desktop for the first time. And in the coming years, that number will surely grow.

Mobile these days accounts for more than 54% of all internet usage, with tablets adding 2% more.

This is because more users are on mobile devices, Google followed the correct path and prioritized websites that have great designs in mobile search rankings.

This mobile-friendly changes impact search results performed on mobile devices, and while it is still possible to rank your site in these results without a good design, Google strongly suggests a website having a powerful mobile version. And making your site mobile-friendly is one of the major responsibilities of SEO company.

16. Building a Secure Website

To create a secure website, it is not an easy task since the process is reserved for the individual who has good knowledge of coding. So, for you to come across a website that is not secure is considered to be normal. There are many websites these days that are still not secure to access.

Always keep in mind a good and secure website will carry an https:// rather than “http://” and in this situation the word “S” means secure.

Google has made it easier for all users to quickly identify a website whether it is secure or not, with the help of the green lock button that appears at the URL bar.

Making your site secure is a popular SEO strategy that increases the trust of your customers.

17. Links

The top-most way your site can develop E.A.T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is through links from other renowned sites.

Links work in the same manner.

Listed below are three major types of links you need to know about for better SEO:

✓ Internal links: The links that direct to another page of your site.

✓ Outbound links: It is also known as external links, these are the links that highlight a website on some other domain.

✓ Inbound links: Sometimes they are called backlinks, these are the links from other sites pointing to your page.

Out of these three, inbound links are the most essential. They offer various great SEO benefits, but they are also difficult to achieve.

There are many actual SEO techniques, experts use to boost high-quality incoming links, including developing sharable images, using social media, and even just requesting backlinks.

But be aware of the fact that not all inbound links are beneficial. Some, especially those that are coming from forum posts, link farms, as well as guestbooks, can be fake links created to influence the rankings in a wrong way. If you don’t disavow these, it can negatively impact your ranking.

18. The Content Development

There are many ways through which content development is the biggest ranking factor. To increase user traffic and user interaction on your website, you need to build and create high-quality content in the process.

However, there are many requirements needed in the process of building good content, and content length is one of the profitable content marketing strategy.

Under this requirement, the content length is not considered to be a set ranking factor, but the higher rankings and longer contents have a direct correlation between them.

In this method, you need to create long-term content and replace fluff with the skyscraper technique, to write beyond and above the basics.

Developing the kind of content that prioritizes search engines and turns visitors into your loyal customers is something of an art.

Unless you have done it earlier, it can be a bit challenging to write copy that reads well and still follows SEO best practices.

We have a complete piece dedicated to assisting you to build your skills, but some of the major takeaways include:

✓ Emphasize readability: Your content should be conveniently scannable, so SERP users can quickly get the information they are searching for.

✓ Don’t overuse keywords: Also known as keyword stuffing, this method was used in the past by talented SEO experts to game the system, Google takes a dim view of websites that use keywords massively. If you are caught doing this, your webpage could be downgraded in search engines or removed altogether. This is one of the original reasons for hiring an SEO company.

✓ Keep sentences and paragraphs brief: If you have ever visited a webpage only to get affected by an unbroken wall of text, you might know how difficult it is to read lengthy pieces of copy. Ignore keeping users away by keeping paragraphs as well as sentences short.

✓ Use subheadings: Subheads are mainly a little bigger in size compared to other content and this grabs the attention of people who are going through your page. Use a lot of subheadings in your content to guide readers in your page.

✓ Use bulleted lists: This may look like meta a little bit, but bullets are the best way to break information into digestible chunks. Utilize them whenever necessary.

19. Increase CTR with Schema Markup

Schema markup is SEO’s new evolution, but it is utilized rather than a powerful Google ranking factor.

As per professionals, only 0.3 few websites use schema markup. This means that there are many websites that are missing out on increasing their SEO score through various types of SEO.

But what actually a schema markup is?

Schema markup is a type of code that you can put on your site to assist search engines to return more informative results for users. In simple terms, schema markups can provide rich snippets in Google’s search results which will enhance your SEO and CTR as well.

Schema markup assists website rank better in search engines for various types of content, including:

✓ Articles
✓ Restaurants
✓ Local businesses
✓ Products
✓ TV episodes and ratings
✓ Book Reviews
✓ Movies
✓ Events
✓ Software Applications

20. Use Short, Keyword-Rich URLs

Google and various other search engines prefer shorter URLs over longer ones. Shorter URLs are also effective from a user experience point of view.

It is also a great idea to put your focus keyword in the URL. This will give you benefits and help you understand why are keywords important.

This is because:

✓ Keywords in the URL update users who see your URL on social media, in an email, and so on, and get a good idea of the content they can expect by clicking on it.

✓ URLs get copied and pasted on a regular basis. When there is no anchor text utilized in a link, the URL itself acts as that anchor text.

✓ Keywords in the URL pop up in the search results. According to research, URL is the topmost aspect users consider when choosing which website to click.

So ignore poor URLs that look seem like this:

XYZ.com/28-06-2022/category/article-title

And go for a keyword-rich URL like this:

XYZ.com/article-title

21. Relevancy

Relevancy of your page is very important to the query. The query is what the user typed into the search box to produce the SERP.

The phrases and words that make up this query are known as keywords.

If you want to rank higher in SERPs, you will have to do your keyword research to find out what your ideal audience is looking online, and then create content that provides the exact answers they are looking for when they perform those searches.

Things To Know About Google Ranking Factors

According to the experts, it views that approximately 3.5 billion searches are performed every day on Google. However, this company is universally well-known and holds about 85% of the desktop search engine market shares, respectively.

Marketers are looking forward to performing well for organic search results with a trustworthy  local SEO company.

So, they need to have a piece of clear information about the factors which Google takes under its belt when it comes to ranking the contents.

The ranking factors, will allow you and your brand to do well in the online platform, when it comes to advertising, promoting, and grabbing the attention of their customers.

Once your brand receives the spotlight it wanted, then your chances of being in the top content rankings by Google will be accepted.

That is why it is important to have a good amount of knowledge about these ranking factors, in order to stay at the top of the search results rankings.

The SEO experts from a local SEO company will provide you with successful local SEO for franchises and help in the process of leading you to the top of the tree.

Understanding each of the important factors for ranking and following them accordingly, will allow you to make a big difference for your brand and receive success along the way.

Final Words

This information will offer you guidance and a clear image of the leading Google ranking factors. With the help of this information, it will allow you to take your steps carefully. There’s no denying the importance of SEO and how it can help you to create and build your company’s website.

So, it’s high time you take note of the ranking factors and build your website in an innovative, unique, and splendid way! Call us at +91-9205356986 or request a quick quote.

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Want to Level Up your SEO Skills? then must read Learn SEO for Beginners & Google Algorithm Updates

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