{"id":442,"date":"2024-11-13T07:33:51","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T07:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diib.com\/learn\/?p=442"},"modified":"2026-10-15T04:09:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T04:09:01","slug":"google-ranking-factors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diib.com\/learn\/google-ranking-factors\/","title":{"rendered":"Google ranking factors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google says it sees more than 5 trillion searches a year<\/a>, so showing up in those results is critical to your company’s survival and growth. It’s imperative that your small or medium-sized business appears on search results pages under those keywords that are highly relevant to what you sell. Ranking well under such keywords is contingent on a number of factors. We will go over what you can do to improve your chances of appearing high up on the first page of Google search results, which can make all the difference in the world to your success.<\/p>\n

How does Google search ranking work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Google ranks pages by how relevant and useful they are for a search, using hundreds of factors<\/a> that can include the searcher’s location, language and device.<\/p>\n

Google uses a search algorithm that is programmed to find the best match between what someone is searching for and the websites that contain this information. The Google ranking algorithm has been constantly refined<\/a> over the past couple decades to better serve its users. The main emphasis of these changes is to help people find the information they are looking for. For this reason, many of these changes have stressed the importance of websites delivering value to people and doing so in a way that delivers an optimal user experience. We will go over some specific factors to help you improve your website, so it will rank higher on Google.<\/p>\n

What are the most important Google ranking factors?<\/b><\/h2>\n

The factors you control most are a secure site Google can crawl, fast pages, a phone-friendly design, helpful content that uses the words people search for, sound technical SEO, quality backlinks and a good user experience.<\/p>\n

Make Sure Your Website Is Secure and Accessible:<\/b><\/h3>\n

Whenever you see a web address that starts with HTTPS, that S stands for secure. Google lists secure HTTPS pages as part of a good page experience<\/a>. Since Chrome 68 in July 2018<\/a>, the Chrome browser labels every plain HTTP page “Not secure,” which can scare visitors away. Make sure every page on your site loads over HTTPS.<\/p>\n

The importance of accessibility is so that Google’s spiders can crawl your site quickly and efficiently. The first step in making this a reality is by using a modern website builder that incorporates the latest coding and technologies. There are a few that are particularly adept at SEO<\/a> and have other impressive features and capabilities as well. A robots.txt file<\/a> tells search engine crawlers which pages on your site they can visit. An XML sitemap<\/a> lists the pages you want Google to find, and Google says most sites benefit from having one. An XML sitemap looks something like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Have Fast-Loading Pages:<\/b><\/h3>\n

The Google algorithm not only wants to reward websites that give people the information they want but that also deliver this information in an optimum fashion. For this reason, their algorithm stresses the importance of page loading speed. Your web pages need to load quickly for mobile users as well. You can check this and a number of other helpful ranking attributes in the Google Search Console<\/a>. Speed also affects whether visitors stay. Google found that as a mobile page’s load time goes from one second to 10 seconds, the chance of a visitor bouncing rises 123%<\/a>. Let’s go over some ways to speed up your webpages.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Have cleanly designed pages without too many images. Plenty of white space helps speed up load times and focuses your visitor’s attention on the truly important information.<\/li>\n
  2. Optimize your images. There are free file compression tools available online that you can use to minimize your image file sizes, so they’ll load quicker.<\/li>\n
  3. Use content distribution networks (CDNs). Basically, these networks enable your website’s data to be stored on servers in geographically diverse areas. With copies in many places, there is usually a server fairly close to each visitor, and the closer the server, the faster your page loads.<\/li>\n
  4. Utilize browser caching. Browser caching doesn’t help the very first time someone visits a page on your site. After that first visit, however, much of the data from the page will be stored in the browser cache, so it will load much faster when they come back.<\/li>\n
  5. Make sure you are using a high-quality hosting service. All the changes in the world you make to your website won’t matter if the company hosting it simply has slow servers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    FACT: Google’s Core Web Vitals guidance<\/a> says a page’s main content should load within 2.5 seconds for a good experience, and Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

    A Mobile-Friendly Site:<\/b><\/h3>\n

    In April 2015, Google released an algorithm update that boosted the importance of mobile-friendliness to your website’s search ranking. The update was such a shock to many SEO experts that it is sometimes known as “Mobilegeddon.” Google now uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking<\/a>, so the phone version of each page is the one that counts. You also need to design your website with mobile customers in mind because a large share of online shopping now happens on phones. Fortunately, any relatively modern website builder should have mobile-friendly design built in. If it has been a while since your small businesses’ website was put together, you should test it with Google’s PageSpeed Insights<\/a> to make sure it works well on phones.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    (Image credit: Google<\/a>)<\/p>\n

    Content and Keywords:<\/b><\/h3>\n

    The content on your website will be one of the biggest deciding factors in where your website will rank. When crafting content for your website, you need to make sure to use the right keywords throughout it. Google looks at the words on your page to judge how relevant your page is to a particular search. diib’s keyword feature helps you find keywords that are relevant to your industry. The keyword page in diib looks something like this:<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    The content is the combination of text, images, videos and any infographics that convey the information the user is looking for. The emphasis, when it comes to content, should be on quality. Good content gives your visitors information they find useful. Google’s guide to creating helpful, reliable, people-first content<\/a> explains that its ranking systems favor content written for people over content written only to rank. Include the words people actually search for in your page copy.<\/p>\n