Google's Hidden Ranking Factors for Bloggers in 2018

Every year, search engine ranking factors update alongside Google’s advances and algorithm updates.Given the complex nature of SEO, this means that search optimization companies (like us) need to stay nimble and be ready to adjust. In fact, this is pretty fundamental to our ability to deliver consistent results. There are probably thousands of ranking signals now and we can’t pretend to know what they are. What we do know is how much of an impact optimising for the most significant ranking factors has – and how easy it was to get that done in the real world.

We work with almost 100 businesses internationally, tracking on average 15 competitors and 500 keywords per website. We took the 2017 Moz Ranking Factors study as a starting point (since we contributed to that anyway) and assessed what has become more or less important; what’s more important for the enterprise brands we work with; and what we can actually get done. If a change is easier for you to make – congratulations! You’ve got a competitive advantage. There are tons of on and off-page ranking factors impacting performance to varying degrees, so it’s easy for search marketers to miss (or just plain forget) the occasional consideration.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled the most important SEO ranking factors of 2018. Let’s begin!

1. Authoritative Content

In 2018, you simply can’t have a list of SEO ranking factors without talking about content!

Authoritative content is the bread and butter of SEO these days. Arm in arm with quality links, these two factors are extremely important. And it makes sense right?

Search engines like Google strive to provide users with useful, relevant content. To get on their radar, your site should have authoritative posts that capture your target audiences attention and provide real value.

Want to see some data supporting these claims? Check out this survey by Ascend2 that ranks on-page content as the most effective SEO tactic.

Image courtesy: Ascend2

Surprised? Hopefully not! Content has been of growing significance for the past 5-10 years.

But don’t worry, if you haven’t already invested in this approach, it’s not too late. In fact, there are ny number of great ways to start gaining ground on the content front.

One of the most affordable ways is with our blog management service. Plans start at just $149/month, making relevant content attainable for even the most budget-strapped small businesses.

2. Backlinks

Another SEO factor that’s on par with content is backlinks. As you saw above, it’s in lockstep with content as one of the most crucial elements of any SEO campaign.

After the initial on-page optimization of a website, you’ll inevitably want to focus on high-quality linkbuilding. Funnily enough, some of the best ways to do this involve leveraging content.

Tactics include guest posting, earning mentions, influencer marketing, and link reclamation.

It’s no coincidence that the top sites on Google have more links than the rest. Brian Dean of Backlinko conducted a study that pretty much sealed the deal.

Image courtesy: Backlinko

Don’t forget though… quality over quantity. This isn’t 1999 folks. Link stuffing and other black hat tactics are not going to help you, and they could earn you a penalty.

But make no mistake about it, high-quality links are still essential to earning higher rankings. Google has simply become much more sophisticated and effective at determining what links are actually high quality.

3. Anchor Text Profile

Another way to maximize the impact of the links you earn, is to assess the anchor text used. This refers to the string of text where the link is embedded.

Typically you want to use anchor texts that are relevant to the content being linked to. Web crawlers and users will then use it to determine what the post is about. The more effective you are at conveying what a page you’re linking to is about, the more likely the user is to be satisfied.

As you might imagine, these are a similarly great opportunity to include your targeted keywords as appropriate.

But be careful, there is such a thing as “over-optimization.”Avoid this by building a diverse anchor text profile. Optimize for anchor text types such as branded text, naked URLs, and topic-related phrases.

Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. Your best bet is to conduct a competitive analysis to find out competitors in your industry are doing.

A competitive research tool like Ahrefs is perfect for this. It works by breaking down a competitor’s organic keyword profile. With the “Keywords Explorer” tool, it can also provide you with keywords to target.

4. On-page Performance Factors

So we’ve talked a bit about off-page factors, and we’ve covered content. But there are still a ton of on-page factors that we’ve yet to talk about.

In addition to content and off-page SEO factors, your site’s rankings are also affected by user experience.CLICK TO TWEET

Providing a memorable user experience is a lot trickier than it sounds. It depends on numerous on-page SEO factors. Here are some of the most important worth considering.

Page Loading Speed

Whether you like it or not, online audiences can be a picky. According to statistics, 40% of web visitors will leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. This leads to a high bounce rate, which indicates a bad user experience. Here’s our guide to optimizing site speed. We also did a collaborative study with GTMetrix that you can check out here.

Image courtesy: Kissmetrics

Mobile-Friendliness

Two years ago, Google announced that mobile searches have topped desktop searches. With initiatives like mobile-first indexing and Google AMP, it’s clear that mobile is a priority. Conforming to these changes is easy thanks to responsive themes and tools like the Mobile-Friendly Test.

SSL/TLS Certificate

Aside from complying with what Google describes as a ranking signal, HTTPS also boosts the confidence of visitors. If you can assure data security, users are more willing to become subscribers or paying customers. Read more.

Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate or CTR measures the number of clicks to your site in contrast to the number of times the link appeared. Aside from ranking higher in search, you can also improve CTR by optimizing page titles and meta descriptions.

Internal Link Structure

An optimized internal link structure allows visitors to see more of your site. It also helps crawlers discover more indexable pages. This helps spread the “link juice” coming from authoritative and contextually-relevant sources.

5. Brand Signals

SEO and branding go hand in hand when it comes to discoverability, authority, and trustworthiness.

Start by focusing on the social signals on and off a website. This includes the number of likes on a post, the number of followers in a page, etc.

These numbers help users determine the value of a piece of content. As a result, it can increase traffic, re-shares, and the content’s potential for more links.

Finally, remember that Google treats Facebook and Twitter links as if they’re regular backlinks. Their crawlers also use them to measure relevance and discover indexable content — but not as ranking factors.

Final Conclusion

These ranking factors are just the tip of the iceberg folks.

There are so many to consider when building your SEO strategy, that we could keep covering these all day! Alas, we all need to start somewhere, and these are the more important worth your time, consideration, and energy.

Also, keep in mind that these are just the most important ones worth noting at the start of 2018. Who knows what changes and innovations the rest of 2018 will bring? We’ll just have to wait and see! We don’t think Google uses totally different ranking factors for big brands and competitive queries so what you need to optimise for depends entirely on what you’re able to do. It’s not helpful to say that Google ranks a website based on a factor that we can do very little about (e.g. Rankbrain) – your starting point should be to decide what’s disproportionately easy for you to do. Do you have less red tape than brands in your sector? Do you have a bigger development team? It’s only a factor in whether you rank if you’ve managed to do something about it.