The Top 15 Most Important SEO Ranking Factors Updated

With this tool, you can submit sitemaps for your site and monitor how many submitted pages have actually been added to Google’s index, among other things. Google has confirmed that it uses page speed as part of its page experience evaluation, which means you need to be aware of it for your site. It’s also what is used to provide featured snippets, ratings, carousels and other types of rich results in search results.

Having links from sites that have been identified as a “Bad Neighbourhood” by Google will hurt your site. A link from a page that has hundreds of links to other sites is worth a lot less than a link from a page that only has a few links to other sites. These tags are essential to maintain the integrity of your own link profile and follow SEO best practices. Link velocity is a measurement of how many links you gain over time. Although links from Wikipedia are Nofollow, Wikipedia backlinks are highly authoritative.

• The more high-quality backlinks and accurate citations your business has, the stronger your Google Maps ranking.
• If you ever need to convince your client or boss to improve page speed, try the comparison tool at Webpagetest.com which allows you to export a slow motion video.
• Beyond that, you show search engines that you are providing solid information to support your site’s content.
• This is a great way for you to build a relationship with other businesses.

Backlinks and Link Authority

While not confirmed as a ranking factor, structured data is invaluable to search engines like Google in understanding a page. With structured data, websites can provide more information about their content, products or services, and offerings to Google and LLMs. In 2025, SEO success depends on great user experience, mobile-friendly sites, and quality content. Properly optimized images not only improve user experience but also help search engines better understand and index the content, which can lead to higher rankings. As mentioned, search engines continue working on their algorithms to improve their users’ experience.

Content quality

Search engines want to rank websites that are experts in their field, authoritative sources of information, and trustworthy. These are metrics Google uses to measure the health SEO Anomaly of your website. The three key areas are loading speed, visual stability, and interactivity. Additionally, this chapter highlights a broader shift as Google moves away from rewarding technical optimizations like HTTPS in favor of high-quality, helpful content. Do these websites rank highly because they have better back-end infrastructure than other sites?

Understanding how search engines work and staying attuned to the factors influencing their processes can help you adapt your SEO strategy as search algorithms evolve. Knowing how search engines discover, evaluate, and rank web content allows you to make informed decisions about optimizing your website and crafting your SEO strategy. There would be no point to links if they didn’t direct searchers to something. Content is more than just words; it’s anything meant to be consumed by searchers — there’s video content, image content, and of course, text.

You should only have one H1 tag per page to establish the main topic. First of all, they advise that quality content should be organized close to the surface. In other words, no content Bing views, should be more than 3 clicks away from the home page. They also tries to eliminate duplicate content at the point of indexing. Redundant content is recognized and eliminated from search market result pages.

Listings with images and videos receive more clicks, calls, and direction requests, making it a crucial factor for Google Maps visibility. The Q&A section on your GBP allows potential customers to ask questions about your business directly in search results. Once those questions are asked, you or other customers are free to answer those questions.

This ensures search engines understand your pages while making them more engaging for visitors. As you optimize your site to rank in local searches, it is important to know which factors will affect your rankings and how customers reach you. There are many local ranking factors consider, but the ones above are some of the most important to focus on as you build and grow your digital presence. Backlink Profile Backlinks, or inbound links from other sites, remain one of the most important Google ranking factors. A strong backlink profile—consisting of high-quality, relevant links—can dramatically improve your website’s SEO ranking. SEO ranking (Search Engine Optimization ranking) refers to the position a webpage holds in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords or queries.