Understanding Google Ranking Factors in 2019

Google is responsible for billions of internet

searches each day, as well as over 85 percent of the search engine market share

so the ultimate goal of a marketer is to find their brand high in the ranking.

Without knowing the factors that Google considers in the ranking, however, it

can be difficult to achieve this goal.

Google never publicly listed these factors, but

it has confirmed that there are around 200 ranking aspects that impact organic

search rankings. These include on-page, off-page and site-level aspects, as

well as virtually endless technical SEO factors that determine your site’s

ranking.

That’s a lot to consider, but fortunately, these

factors aren’t weighed equally. Some factors are more important than others,

and there are some SEO best practices on which you should focus before

correcting the low-impact aspects of your site.

Here are the most important Google ranking

factors leading into 2019:

Architecture

In terms of impact, your website’s architecture

is high on the list. While there are some factors that are more important than

website architecture, it’s about more than just your ranking. Your website is

what you want your customers to visit and return to, so getting it right is

vital to your business’s success.

First, determine the subcategories you’ll cover

on your site, then organize your entire site around them with clear strings of

text at the end of your URLs. This makes it easier for Google to recognize you

as an authority and determine your value to a user searching a target keyword.

Domain Security

The first priority of Google is serving the

needs of its users, which includes giving them a safe and secure experience. As

a result, your domain’s security is a significant factor in your search engine

ranking.

Google recognizes secure websites with the

“https” at the start of the URL. This stands for hypertext transfer protocol

secure, which is the process that transfers information from the site to the

visitor’s web browser.

If a site has https, Google knows it’s secure

and the information it’s indexing is safe for the user. With a normal http,

Google is less likely to rank the site high in the results. Correcting this is

as simple as getting an SSL certificate for your website.

Inbound Links

Inbound links, or backlinks, are the hyperlinks

that direct a user back to your pages from other pages on the internet. These

are so important for your Google ranking that they can even impact the number

of the search page you land on.

These links aren’t your only source of traffic,

so they may not seem important to your site. Inbound links tell Google that

others trust your information, however, since they’re linking to it from their

own sites. Trust is important to Google, so a site that appears more trustworthy

and links to other trustworthy sites is likely to rank higher.

Unfortunately, this can’t be achieved by linking

your own pages to each other. Inbound links only work for Google ranking if

they come from outside domains, and the quality of those domains influences the

ranking further.

Because of this, link building has become a hot

topic for marketers. This can be achieved by trading inbound links between

other authorities in your industry, or writing a post on another website and

linking back to your own.

Authority

The topics you choose form the foundation for

the authority you’ll need for long-term ranking. Generally, the more content

you publish about a specific topic, the higher all related posts about that

topic will rank in Google results.

Over time, Google will recognize you as an

authority on that topic, regardless of how well-written or keyword-rich the

posts are. Of course, you should still work to produce content that’s readable,

relevant and valuable, which will only attract more readers and boost your

ranking further.

Keyword Intent

Though topics are important, keywords still

factor into your ranking. Keyword optimization is one of the best things you

can do for your SEO, provided you do it correctly.

In the past, Google used to prioritize the posts

with keywords that were an exact match, but now it focuses on the intent of the

keyword. What this means is that Google is trying to determine what the user is

looking for, rather than finding the exact words used, so it can provide a

better experience for the user.

This may seem a little bit trickier than

including specific keywords multiple times, but a naturally well-written piece

should solve these needs on its own. If you’re writing your content with the

intent of solving a problem or providing valuable information to the reader,

your content will be recognized by Google as an answer to the user’s question

and rank it higher.

Structure

Your website’s visitors need to quickly find the

information they’re looking for and get answers to their questions, but that’s

not the only factor you need to consider in designing your site. The way the

content is structured could mean the difference between your site ranking above

or below a similar site with competitive keywords.

Ideally, you’re already using headings,

subheading, images, bulleted lists and other methods of improving readability

for your visitors. These additions to your content help your reader digest the

information you’re providing and keep them more engaged with your content.

Engaged readers stay on your site longer, which is interpreted by Google as

“session duration,” a factor that also helps your ranking.

Meta Tags

Meta tags may not be something you include in

your SEO strategy, but they’re simple and effective for boosting your Google

ranking. Meta tags give Google an idea of the purpose of your page and how each

aspect of the page works toward the topic and keyword.

There are several types of meta tags that should

have keyword details:

●Title tag: This is typically the

title of your article and shows up in the HTML. Google uses this to create a

blue hyperlink headline that shows up in the search engine results. Title tags

are useful for content that doesn’t have a natural headline that describes its

content.

●Image alt text: Google doesn’t read

images in the same way as text, so images have a limited ability to improve

ranking on their own. Image alt text that describes the content of the page helps Google understand the image better,

however, so it should always be included.

●Meta description: This is the

snippet of text that appears under the links on the search results page, which

summarizes the content. A meta description doesn’t need to have keywords, but

it will help Google better understand the content and boost the ranking.

Load Speed

Load speed is the speed at which your website

loads when a user clicks on it from a search results page. There are many

factors that can impact your website speeds, but Google will prioritize the

sites that load faster.

Generally, pages should load in under three

seconds to be considered fast enough for Google’s standards. Some pages won’t

be penalized for slower speeds, however, and some need to load in two seconds

or less to earn a high Google ranking.