How Google ranks a Website: Ranking Factors in 2019 [Infographic]

Have you ever wondered why some sites rank high on Google when they aren’t optimized for search engines? Or even worse, when they barely have any backlinks? This post will allow you a better understanding of some of the factors that Google looks at when ranking websites in 2019.

Have you constantly wondered why certain websites rank higher than others? Or why your website doesn’t rank as high as your competitors?

If you repeatedly sought this question, you can read here what Quicksprout found out the beginning of 2019. If you walk through the interactive infographic below you might shake your head and say to yourself, yes I did this, yes I recognize this or I missed this one.

Here’s why some sites rank high when they aren’t optimized:

Many has to do with Google’s algorithm. It looks at over 200 ranking factors when determining where to rank a site. As you until now know, these ranking factors aren’t easy to understand, which makes it difficult for you to figure out how to adjust your site to maximize your rankings.

But let’s have the essential things taken care of today.

Domain is Your Main Ranking Factor

The classic is for sure the age of your domain and if your keyword is in addition in the Domain name. Domains which start with the keyword are gaining an advantage compared to the once which do not.

What can you do on Page-Level

Is your keyword in the title tag? This is a significant piece – this sends a strong on-page SEO signal. Having the keyword appear more than any other keyword acts as a relevancy signal. Importance shows also the length of your content, these enable you to rank better than shorter superficial articles. Optimized images send also a strong on-page SEO signal to search engines.

What is important on Site Level

What is a website without proper contact us information, Google honers complete the “appropriate amount of contact information”.  Also, how often a site is updated leads to a site-wide freshness factor. YouTube gives preferential treatment in the SERPS. Remember Google owns YouTube. Search engine land found that YouTube traffic increased significantly after Google Panda.

Are Backlinks still a Ranking Factor

The simples thumb rule is that domains which are older holding your backlinks are much more powerful backlinks. The PageRank of the referring page is an extremely important ranking factor. Links embedded are more powerful than links in the footer or sidebar area.

How about Social Signals

The number of tweets a page has will influence its rank in Google. Facebook shares are similar to backlinks and are stronger than facebook likes.

What Not To Do

Avoid cloaking, paid links and autogenerated content, sounds simple but it is the biggest honeypot out there and widely used.

To initiate you off, Quicksprout created an infographic that visually breaks down many of the components of Google’s algorithm which you can find below.