SEO Competition 2019: Google Ranking Factors For Bloggers & Marketers

It is said that 97.8 million blog posts are published on Web sites every day only on WordPress and there are several other CMS available. So, you can imagine the competition for coming on the first page of Google Search. There is an old saying in digital marketing “If it’s not on the first page of Google Search, its invisible to the world”.

Google search uses the algorithm of PageRank to rank a website in their Google’s search engine results which was public previously but now it is hidden. There are a number of factors considered by Google ranking algorithm to decide the ranking of web pages on a particular keyword. According to Google, they use over 100 ranking factors. In this blog post, we will discuss those Google ranking factors 2019 one by one. It’s a long journey. So, Let’s get started

These Google ranking factors are not in any particular order but each one of them has the significance of their own.

i. Keyword in Domain

The domain that contains keyword will boost the ranking of a site. If the keyword is present in your domain’s first word then it will be an advantage for your website.

ii. Keyword in Subdomain

If the keyword is present in the subdomain of your website than it will boost the rankings. The subdomain is the part of the domain like we have the domain like abcd.com and its subdomain is eat.abcd.com.

iii. Public Vs. Private WhoIs

Public WhoIs information is better as compared to private WhoIs because in private WhoIs we can’t check WhoIs information for their website. Their website had the privacy protection on their WhoIs. This leads to the decrease of the ranking of the website.

iv. Country TLD Extension

Using a Country TLD (Top Level Domain) helps to get our website at good rank but this can become a disadvantage also because countries TLDs are country specific domains like (.in, .nz, .ca).

v. Keyword in Blog Title

The title appears first on Google’s search results. Keyword in the title can boost website’s ranking and will also improve the SEO of our website.

vi. Keyword in Description

Most of the writers prefer to use more keywords in the description to boost the Google ranking. Keyword in the description can create a big impact on CTR which leads to better ranking.

vii. Length of the content

Content length has the correlation with the SERP and it helps in getting good rank in Google rankings. Google’s algorithm prefers content with more length as compared to shorter content. The average word count of the web pages on the first page of the Google Search is 1400 Words. Also longer content means higher keyword density.

viii. Table of Contents

Content with more table of contents can help in boosting the ranks of the website. Table of contents also can be viewed in the site links that are displayed on Google’s search results.

ix. LSI Keywords in Title and Description

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) is the method by which Google can identify the meaning of the words that have more than one meaning. LSI keywords can be used in the title and description of your website.

x. Page Covers Topic

Content that covers the each and every point will get more ranking in Google. Content that covers the topic partially will not get enough boosts in ranks. This is also co-related to length of the article as longer the article better chances are you will cover the whole topic.

xi. Page Loading Speed (HTML)

Among the top search engines, Google and Bing use Page loading speed to rank the websites. These search engines use HTML Codes to check the page loading speed.

xii. Entity Match

If the content of the page contains entity for which the user is looking for then the website will get the rank boost.

xiii. Google Hummingbird

Google Hummingbird is the fast and accurate algorithm used by Google to rank the websites. With hummingbird algorithm, Google can go in depth to the keywords and provide the most suitable search results to users.

xiv. Duplicate Content

A site that has the duplicate content will never get the boost in ranking. Content that is copied from another website or created with tool can’t get the boost in in their search rankings.

xv. Image Optimization

Many users like to search content by using images. Images search ranking works on the basis of their file name, title, description and caption.

xvi. Multimedia

Multimedia is also a major factor in Google rankings. Multimedia consists of Images, Videos, and Songs etc. that can be used in content. According to study, every content must contain at least one image.

xvii. PageRank Algorithm by Google

PageRank is the algorithm which is used by Google Search to rank websites in Google’s search engine results. Pages that have more authorities are more likely to get a good rank in Google rankings.

xviii. URL Length

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) length is also an important factor in Google rankings. If your URL length is long then it may affect the page’s search visibility. Shorter length URLs looks better and also helps to increase the rank of your website.

xix. URL Path

URL Path is the path of different pages of your website. A decent website contains home, about us and contact us page. If about us page is the closest age to the home page then it will get authorities faster as compared to that page whose path is longer.

xx. Human Editors

It is not confirmed but according to news, Google has filed a patent that will allow human editors to grow the website content for the boost in SERP.

xxi. Wordpress Tags

If we are writing an article then it must contain WordPress tags. According to Yoast, contents should be interrelated with each other. If you have written 2 paragraphs then those 2 paragraphs should be interrelated with each other.

xxii. Quality of Content

If your content is creative and effective then it can increase your rank among the other websites. Content is the key of any website. Content should be made according to user requirements and it shouldn’t contain more hard words. It should be eye-catching that can be easily seen on top searches of Google.

xxiii. Contact Us Page

Contact Us Page is the must required page on the website. If anyone wants to connect with your company then they can easily contact you. Google prefers those websites that have sufficient amount of contact data and if your contact information matched with your WhoIs data then it will be beneficial for your website.

xxiv. SSL Certificate

Nowadays security comes on the top priority before creating any website. According to Google, HTTPS is now used as a ranking signal. You need to add SSL Certificate in your site server to use HTTPS connection, which is important for securing our website from any malicious attacks during online data transmission. Currently, Google Chrome 68 will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure” in address bar.

You find low-cost trusted HTTPS/SSL certificates from the list of cheap DV SSL certificate providers according to your need.

xxv. Youtube

Youtube is one of the top websites by which you can improve rank and you can promote your businesses & websites. Adding a video to Youtube on the content of your web page can improve your search engine ranking factor.

xxvi. Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Some people think that if they’ll install more programs then it will improve their indexing but this is a myth in people’s mind. This can decrease the rankings of your website as installing more programs can decrease the loading speed of your website.

xxvii. User Reviews

User reviews and comments can also help to increase your website’s rank. Google uses many online reviews platforms like Yelp.com in Google’s algorithm to know the reputation of sites.

xxviii. Guest Posts

Guest posts can help your site to grow the rank. By using the links in the guest post we can grow our website but guest post links are not powerful as like editorial links.

xxix. Links From 301

Links from 301 can decrease the PageRank sometimes. During redirecting the links to direct links, some data may lose. But according to Matt Cutts, 301 links are very much similar to direct links.

xxx. Word Count of Linking Content

If we have written two posts, one post is of 2000 word and another one is of 1500 word then the links which are used in 2000 word is more valuable than the links created in 1500 word post.

xxxi. RankBrain

It is the Artificial Intelligence algorithm of Google which is used to see that how people interacts with the search results of Google.

xxxii. CTR for a Keyword

CTR is the click-through rate and it is the most important factor in increasing the ranks of the website. Google says that if the page is clicked more in CTR then the site will get SERP boost.

xxxiii. Bounce Rate

It calculates the percentage of users who visit only one page of the website. Google uses bounce rate for testing the quality of the website.

xxxiv. Direct Traffic

Direct traffic plays an important role in increasing the ranks of the website. Google uses Google Chrome to check for the users who visited sites. Sites that have direct traffic is more valuable than the sites that have less number of direct traffic on their website.

xxxv. Repeat Traffic

Sites which have the more repeated users will also get the boost in ranking.

xxxvi. Pogosticking

It should be less on website’s search results. Due to Pogosticking user will bounce to the other search results to get the better solutions to their problems.

xxxvii. Blocked Sites

There are many users that use tool to block unwanted sites like Google Chrome. It will prevent the user from visiting the unauthorized sites. The website like these is not likely to do well in Google search algorithms.

xxxviii. Chrome Bookmarks

Many people use bookmarks to bookmark a website so that in future they can easily open that website in one click. Websites which gets bookmarked will get the boost in the ranking of Google.

xxxix. Number of Comments

Comments can help in boosting the ranking of your website. The website that have lots of comments, this means that website is more user interactive that will boost your website’s ranking.

xxxx. Dwell Time

Dwell time is the time measured by Google to calculate the time i.e for how much time people stay on your website from Google’s search results. Higher the dwell time better will be your ranking in Google search.

xxxxi. Transactional Searches

Sometimes Google searches differently for the keywords related to shopping like we are searching for flights. So, in this websites with the better interface will get the higher ranking.

xxxxii. Local Searches

Google searches for local places like if someone wants to go outside for dinner then it will search the nearby places of restaurants.

xxxxiii. Top Stories Box

We can use some keywords by which our article will get displayed in the top stories box.

xxxxiv. Shopping Results

When someone searches for some product then Google shows the top shopping searches.

xxxxv. Domain Diversity

Domain diversity comes from the major factor of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to increase site’s rank on Google SERPs. It is used to add more inbound links to increase the traffic and rank.

xxxxvi. Easter Egg Results

Google contains millions of data and files, and because of this Google sometimes shows the different result instead of the actual result.

xxxxvii. Brand Name Anchor Text

These texts are used for the brands and more likely for boosting the ranks. Brand Name Anchor Texts are simple but they are strong to boost the ranks.

xxxxviii. Facebook Page and Likes in Site

If we want to increase the rank then Facebook is the important social tool to promote businesses and websites. A person who has a Facebook page with the huge number of likes can easily increase the rank of a website.

xxxxix. Site has Twitter Profile

A company that owns a twitter profile with lots of followers can be used to increase the brand of the company and rank of a website.

xxxxx. LinkedIn Page

LinkedIn is the social platform for professionals, business persons, and famous personalities. In LinkedIn there are many businesses has their company page. Having a company Linkedin profile can boost your Google ranking.

xxxxxi. Brand on Top Stories

Brands that are displayed on the top stories of Google’s search results will get the boost in rankings.

xxxxxii. Panda Penalty

Panda Penalty is the penalty imposed by the Google on the websites that have low-quality content. If your website comes under this, it’s a very bad news for you and your business.

xxxxxiii. Redirects

Redirects should never appear on our websites. If redirects caught then your website has to suffer from penalties or the site will be de-indexed forget about ranking.

xxxxxiv. Popups

Popups can become the disadvantage for any site that shows popups on opening a site. Popups would not appear to the user if you want to increase your site ranking. There should be no distracting ads and popups on your website.

xxxxxv. Gibberish Content

Gibberish content is the content which makes no sense. Hackers and spammers can easily generate gibberish content to harm systems.

xxxxxvi. Doorway Pages

Some websites use doorway pages that redirect to another page. These are the pages that don’t open the actual page but it will redirect users to another page. If Google cathes you deceiving its users you will never get to see your web page on first rank and it can also de-index your website

xxxxxvii. Hiding Affiliate Links

Hiding the affiliate links can cause a penalty to the website. Many websites use too many affiliate links on their sites, because of this they make code shorter with cloaking that’s why these website gets penalized.

xxxxxviii. Fred

Fred is the nickname which was given to the Google updates. Fred focuses on the low value content sites that only focus on revenue, not on users.

xxxxxix. Autogenerated Content

If you produce autogenerated content then your site will be de-indexed. There are many sites which autogenerate content by use of tools and by use of Markov Chains. These websites are most likely to lose their Google ranking.

xxxxxx. Meta Tag Spamming

Most of the owner use keywords in the title and description to divert the algorithm, Google may hit those websites and penalize them for deceiving its users.

xxxxxxi. Widget Links

There are some links that can affect the site’s PageRank. These links came from the widget which we use for our website.

xxxxxxii. Unnatural Links

Unwanted Links can cause harm to your website by hacking and another malicious method. Unnatural links can drop your website’s rank.

xxxxxxiii. Google Sandbox

It is a filter that is placed on websites when we get the huge number of links then Google Sandbox will limit the visibility of the website in search engine.

xxxxxxiv. Google Dance

It is the term used by Google when its ranking fluctuates. When Google rebuild its ranking data of different websites then it can happen. According to information, the Google dance will happen 30 times per year.

xxxxxxv. Disavow Tool

It is the tool of Google search console which is used to remove the unwanted inbound links coming into the site. This tool is used to prevent the site from link-based penalties.

xxxxxxvi. Domain Age

Matt Cutts, former head of Google web spam said that it doesn’t matter that what is the age of your domain. Domain age is not an important factor, because ranking depends upon the content of your website.