It’s vital to remember that SEO isn’t only about improving rankings – it’s a wider strategy that focuses on attracting the right sort of customer to your business. And with more and more decisions being made right there in the SERP, there are even more levers you can pull that impact users before they hit your site. Once the full data is available, we’ll update this article to include more of the local SEO ranking factors that matter most for each group. Focusing on the factors in the table above should help provide a useful starting point for the tasks needed to optimize for local searches. Though, with more than 100 individual factors to choose from, it’s highly advised to focus on a broader set of tasks – with some improvements necessary in most of the grouped factors.
Proven Strategies to Improve Your Google Maps SEO
Getting reviews on your Google Business Profile and elsewhere builds trust with Google and customers. The “regular” organic search results are the “ten blue links” that we’re all familiar with. Search engine optimization works by optimizing the above buckets to meet search engine best practices. Search engine optimization uses how search works to optimize a site for organic search results. If you’re curious to learn more about Google and its impact on SEO, check out our timeline of Google algorithm updates.
These instructions are executed via Robots Meta Tags in the of your HTML pages (most commonly used) or via the X-Robots-Tag in the HTTP header. Some individuals believe that if they place a search box on their site, search engines will be able to find everything that their visitors search for. Most people think about making sure Google can find their important pages, but it’s easy to forget that there are likely pages you don’t want Googlebot to find. These might include things like old URLs that have thin content, duplicate URLs (such as sort-and-filter parameters for e-commerce), special promo code pages, staging or test pages, and so on. Consider using a site speed optimization solution that can serve pages instantly by predicting user behavior to preload them in advance.
Duplicate content refers to blocks of content that are either completely identical or very similar to each other, across your own site or across different websites. Search engines like Google strive to provide users with diverse and unique content in their search results. Therefore, having duplicate content can hinder your SEO efforts by diluting the visibility of your content in search results or, in worse cases, causing search engines to penalize your site.
Figure out search intent
For example, content freshness is more important when the query relates to a trending topic. In addition to content freshness, some other factors such as relevance, authority, and user experience also play a major role in determining rankings. With content relevance in mind, here are a few ranking signals that may help search engine better understand the site’s content. I hope you liked this article on the most important Google ranking factors. If you need more info on your site’s Google rankings, read this post on the best Google ranking checker tools. So, working on your content’s structure and organization can help improve its readability.
Content Length
- Content is key not just for ranking, but also for user experience and conversion.
- Apply SEO best practices to make your site easier to find, navigate, and rank higher in search results.
- It’s important to note that Google doesn’t look at just 1 ranking signal.
- Without a full-funnel approach, you probably won’t see the results you expect — even if you produce content at scale.
Join GUVI’s Digital Marketing Course to kickstart your journey in this exciting field. Gain expertise in ChatGPT, WordPress, Meta Business Suite, Google Analytics, Youtube Analytics, Google Ads Manager, and more. Master essential skills in SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, content creation, and digital advertising tactics to excel in the Digital Marketing industry. Today, your content will rank only if it offers what exactly the user has in mind. Matching user intent is about aligning your content with the specific needs and desires of your audience at the moment they perform a search.
Well-structured text, fast loading pages, and mobile-friendly designs improve user experience and keep visitors engaged. These rankings are decided by complex algorithms that evaluate various factors to present the most relevant and high-quality results to users. SEO ranking refers to where a webpage appears in the organic (unpaid) search results for a specific query on search engines like Google. Of course, just having relevant keywords in the body of your page by itself does not improve its rankings – Google looks on other places as well when evaluating the relevance of the content.
The goal is to attract more visitors to your site naturally, without paying for ads, by making your site more appealing to search engines like Google. High authority backlinks are links from highly trusted and credible websites. A backlink from a reputable, high-authority site boosts your site’s SEO more than one from a lesser-known source. It’s pivotal in determining your site’s ranking in search engine results. At Digital Sprout, we specialize in providing customized SEO Anomaly SEO solutions for businesses in Maryland and beyond.
Incoming links from other websites have a huge influence on Google’s ranking algorithm. The Google algorithm uses ranking factors to determine the order in which websites appear in search results for a specific query. Next, we’ll look at 3 ranking factors that impact local businesses. Be sure to read Google’s guidance on how to improve your local ranking. By having descriptive alt text on web pages alongside quality content, sites can improve rankings and traffic from search engines. Internal links and quality backlinks are vital for strong rankings because they signal to search engines that a page is valuable and useful.
By adding schema markup to your website’s HTML, you provide search engines with explicit clues about what your data means. Page speed remains one of the most important ranking factors in 2025. Websites that load quickly provide a better user experience, and faster sites tend to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs). 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.
