TOP 10 SEO RANKING FACTORS IN 2021
Are you interested in knowing the top SEO ranking factors for 2021? Read our post below and know these factors quickly.
More than 3.5 billion individual searches pass through Google every day. No wonder that you want your website to rank as high as possible in Google search results. But did you know that we currently distinguish over 200 different Google ranking factors that change and update from time to time? It can be difficult to implement and keep up with all the changes, so it is worth considering which ranking factors for page positioning are currently the most important.
Many website owners would like to adhere to all ranking factors, but in practice, this usually turns out to be impossible. What if we told you that you only need to focus on a few of them to rank higher in search results? To help you identify them, we have compiled a list of the top ten SEO ranking factors for 2021. Here they are:
Top 10 SEO Ranking Factors
1. Core Web Vitals (CWV)
Core Web Vitals are the latest fully user-oriented ranking factors that went into effect in May 2021. They are designed to help crawlers more accurately assess your website experience and improve search usability. The scope of these indicators exceeds the standard loading speed and responsiveness of the website. They try to understand the user experience by the speed of the page loading and the amount of time it takes for users to interact with the site. There are still many unanswered questions about Core Web Vitals, but one thing is certain: user experience is the future of SEO.
2. High-quality, engaging content
It’s been three years since content became the top SEO ranking factor. Google’s algorithms reward voluminous content that is relevant and responsive to user inquiries. The content should be comprehensive and relevant to the search phrase, so that site visitors do not come back to the search results, looking for other materials related to their query. Content should provide real value to the user and include engaging visual content that complements the written content.
The quality of the content always exceeds the quantity. Focus on value, not word count.
Google’s BERT algorithm uses Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to better understand searches and what users are actually looking for. Thanks to the Google BERT update, the algorithm can now interpret the searcher’s intentions. This means that websites whose content is assessed as not matching the users’ search intentions will be assessed negatively, and thus will be placed further on the list of results. No matter how detailed or high-quality the content is, if it is unsatisfactory for the user, BERT will ignore it and point the user to others that the algorithm thinks better match the intentions of the query.
Watch out for duplicates. Having similar content on different pages of your website can actually hurt your ranking.
3. High-quality link profile
Right after content, links are another key SEO ranking factor. They are an essential part of the ranking algorithm and allow crawlers to find your site. In fact, content and backlinks go hand in hand as websites with no backlinks generate almost no organic traffic.
The more links from multiple high authority domains you have in your site profile, the better your chances of ranking well. Marketers should pay close attention to link profiles, especially in the context of recent updates such as Penguin 4.0, which has been cleaning up and filtering sites with low-quality backlink profiles.
4. Keyword strategy
In addition to creating content and getting backlinks, one of the most obvious SEO ranking factors is the use of keywords. Keywords are terms that users use to search for content and information on Google. It is important for your website to contain the keywords your audience is searching for. This allows Google to display the page in the results list.
Keywords in title meta tags have the greatest impact on SEO. They help Google bots quickly identify the page’s context and understand its content. Title tags are also the most prominent part of any search result. It’s worth taking the time to write a unique and relevant title for each page. Its maximum length should not exceed 50-60 characters. Next, it’s important to optimize all your titles, using your main keywords to increase clicks and conversions.
5. A trustworthy and secure site
Google needs to trust your website if you want to perform well on the SERP. The search engine will not send users to a site that may not protect their data or be otherwise harmful. Therefore, at the very beginning, when you decide to create a website, it is worth taking care of its security.
How can you make sure your website is safe for users?
- Use a well-coded website builder.
- Create and embed a robots.txt file to tell Google where to look for information about your site.
- Create a sitemap containing all your websites.
- Take care of your SSL certificate so that your web address starts with “https://”.
Having an SSL certificate is essential for e-commerce websites. However, even small pages that collect any user data should be provided with user data if they are to rank high.
6. Responsive website design
On November 4, 2016, Google announced indexing optimized for mobile devices. Currently, under the mobile-first indexing policy, it is the mobile version of the website that is considered more important and more useful for Internet users than the desktop version. Google first displays results that are easy to read and use on mobile devices, as more than half of all searches are now done from mobile devices.
In 2021, there’s no excuse not to have a mobile-friendly site. If you are not sure if your website is properly adapted to use on mobile phones, you can use a free tool from Google. With the Mobile Support Report, you will be able to see what needs to be improved.
7. Site Speed
Today’s internet users are impatient. This applies especially to mobile users and people using voice search engines, i.e. groups that are constantly growing in relation to the total number of people searching the web. For this reason, it is important to optimize your site for speed. Reducing its loading time by even a few microseconds can have a significant impact on the ranking, especially if it allows your site to load faster than your competitors’ websites.
It is worth emphasizing, however, that beating the competition by milliseconds of the page loading time is not the most important thing. First of all, you should pay attention to how fast the page actually loads for users, because it is the great website experience that is important to Google. You can see how fast your pages load yourself using Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool also includes tips to help you take the right steps and make it faster.
In 2021, website loading speed has become even more important since Google classified this ranking factor as one of the Core Web Vitals’ core metrics.
8. Internal linking
Internal links are links that lead from one page to another on the same domain. They help Google’s crawlers to better understand your website’s hierarchy and the importance of its content. At the same time, these types of links are a great way to keep an organized structure and connect all pages. Thanks to this, visitors to your site will be able to easily navigate between individual pages and thus, they will stay longer on it.
One of the most common mistakes is placing a link to the home page on all subpages. It is worth bearing in mind that each site is built on a hierarchical scale and the home page has the highest priority. Instead, it’s a good practice to create links that will allow users to delve into the site in question. This will improve its value and provide a better experience to those who will use it.
9. Schema markup
Schema markup is code that is placed on your site to help Google extract detailed information from your site and understand specific text, such as addresses, phone numbers, recipes, and reviews. Google prefers websites that use schema markup as this improves the user experience and enables search algorithms to quickly deliver accurate results to Internet users.
With schema markup, users don’t need to visit a website to get a direct answer to their questions. The information can be read from the expanded fragment displayed above the search results list. Quick response content that is immediately available saves users time and effort and allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition and increase your organic click-through rates.
Adding structured data can improve your click-through rates (CTR) by 30%, which means additional visits and potential sales at no extra cost. There are currently over 600 different types of schema markup that sites can use.
Before adding schema markup to your site, make sure that they follow Google’s guidelines.
10.Visual search
Visual search is one of the most exciting search features Google has added to its services recently. Based on artificial intelligence, allows you to obtain search results based on sent photos, web images, or screenshots. With this feature, brands will get new opportunities to interact with the right audience through search – especially with retail brands.
Currently, visual search is used by the largest companies and portals such as Amazon, Google, or Pinterest. It is indicated, however, that visual search may turn out to be a breakthrough in the world of online stores, especially those operating in the clothing, cosmetics, and interior design industries.
Summary: Main SEO Ranking Factors
SEO becomes more and more complex with each passing year. The days of plain optimization for keywords and meta titles are long gone. Recent Google updates are paving the way for websites with high-quality content that delivers real value to users. Google is also increasingly measuring how users interact with your content. We hope that the above list of the most important SEO ranking factors will help you understand the current trends and help you create an intelligent SEO strategy. And if you need help implementing the recommendations from this article – please contact us. Infosty specialists will take care of your website positioning in accordance with the latest Google guidelines.
