100 Google Ranking Factors (Complete SEO Checklist)
The core of what Google is about, is bringing information to people. And Al is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. ~ Sundar Pichai
We have published the most comprehensive guide on Google’s 100 ranking factors. In this blog, I’ve shared the complete SEO checklist for 2023 to rank your website on the first page of Google. This blog also gives you insights on new trends and strategies that will work great for you this year.
Brands can implement these 100 Google ranking factors or even download this complete SEO checklist for the organic growth of their online businesses.
SEO is a long race, not a sprint. If you are trying to grow your qualified search traffic, you have to combine your content marketing with your SEO efforts.
~Neil Patel, Co-Founder (Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics)
Google’s 100 Ranking Factors to rank on First Page
SEO Basic Background Checklist
1. Set up Google Search Console
Install this program on your site as it improves the efficiency of indexing your website and web pages. The Google Search console hooks site’s ranking by giving you specific data about index status, crawl status, HTML improvements, structured data, sitemap submission, site errors, links to your site, search analytics, and more.
2. Install Bing Webmaster Tools
If someone talks about ranking, traffic, or SEO, then Google is the most common search engine that comes in our mind.
If you also think the same, it’s not wrong! It drives enormous traffic than any other search engine on the web. Most people even do not think about using any other search engine except Google.
But in order to get extra benefits, Bing is also open for you. It has more than 20% market share in USA and more than 9% market share worldwide.
As per Microsoft, Bing has an astonishing 33% market share which is around 5 billion searches on the web.
Hence, you can install Bing Webmaster Tools, index your web pages, and improve your site’s performance on search. It will add traffic to your site just like a cherry on the cake.
3. Set up Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free, and one of the most powerful data analytics software. It gives you an access to analyze the data in detail and with this, you get valuable insights.
You can track the performance of your site such as session time, bounce rate, traffic, behaviour, demographic, geographic, and other in-depth detail.
You can also understand the information of your audience in terms of their age, gender, interest, device, and location. To improve the performance of organic search and marketing campaigns, marketers often use Google Analytics for their search analysis.
4. Install Rank Math, Yoast, or All in One SEO Plugin
This section is for WordPress Users Only. You can install Rank Math SEO or Yoast SEO to do On-Page and Technical SEO. You can also use All in One SEO plugin for On-Page SEO that can be used along with the necessary pre-built plugins (Schema markups, etc). But, I highly recommend Rank Math as it contains the free features that Yoast SEO has in premium, and it has also proven to be an amazing plugin, even referred by market leaders.
5. Short Tail and Long Tail SEO Keyword Research
In one report of Ahrefs, it was revealed that 90.63% of the pages get zero traffic from Google because of not choosing the right keywords. Choosing the wrong SEO keyword can take your site to marshland. It results in either very little traffic or zero traffic.
Apart from this, if your site is new into space, then selecting a short tail SEO keyword such as BUSINESS, MARKETING, ADVERTISING, MONEY can be super competitive, and it may take more than a year to rank.
Instead of selecting a highly competitive short tail SEO keyword, you can choose a long-tail SEO keyword such as “how to make money”, “how to make money online from home”, or “how to make money on social media”. Selecting such keywords that are less competitive with decent search volume is accessible to rank and can drive enough traffic to your website.
6. Best SEO Keyword Tool to find the right keywords
You can use SEO keyword research tools such as Semrush (Get Exclusive FREE 14-Day Semrush Pro Trial), Ahrefs, UberSuggest, Google Keyword Planner, Serpstat, or Moz to analyze Search volume Keyword difficulty, CPC, Trends, Estimated visits, Rank difficulty, and more.
Other Excellent Platforms to find the right keywords
Wikipedia, Amazon, Reddit, Quora, forums, and other online communities are excellent places where you can select the appropriate keywords for your blog posts.
SEO isn’t about ‘how do I get keywords into Google; it’s about understanding how many people search for information and finding a way to get in front of them.
~Danny Sullivan, Co-Founder of Search Engine Land
7. Create Profiles on Social Media Accounts
Create profiles on top social media platforms to enhance the brand’s visibility. With an increase in shares, comments, pins, tweets, etc., your ranking also improves across SERP (as social media engagement gives positive signals to search engine crawlers)
Content Front (SEO and Content Marketing)
The best successful SEO is to prefer 100 % Quality over Quantity. And Longer content helps you rank better for your target keyword and brings in more long-tail traffic … a win-win!
~Brian Dean, Founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics
8. Create Amazing and hybrid Content
Along with text, if your blog post contains screenshots, graphs, Interactive polls and quizzes, visuals, infographics, audio, and video content, then such posts are known as hybrid content. They create a fantastic appeal to the audience with maximum user engagement.
If you create such a nice blog post, then there is a high possibility you will get a better ranking, more clicks, and more social traction and shares.
9. Chunk Content to Maximize Readability
Do not clutter the sentences. Give proper breathing space. Do not use complicated words to impress the audience, as it can backfire.
Always use simple words that are easy to read and understand. Your audience should not pull their hair while reading your article.
Also, write in an active voice and keep sentences short. One sentence must not exceed more than 20 words or 2-3 lines.
Use subheadings after 150-300 words where you can place the visuals after every 100 words, if needed. Also, try to put quotes, and add call to action to bring credibility to your content.
10. Create 100% Original and In-Depth Content Only
Google prefers those pages to rank on the top, which has covered every aspect in-depth than the pages that has partially covered the topic.
For our OnCrawlers, technical sanity, freshness, content quality & int/ext popularity are the best way to rank.
~Erle Alberton, Marketing Specialist
Comprehensive blog posts have a direct correlation with Google’s ranking. That is why you should first focus on content formats. Long content (more than 2000 words) is preferred by Google more than short content. An industry study found that content length is also one of the most important ranking factors.
Long Content gets more backlinks and social shares, thus also helping in giving signals to search engines to help it rank higher.
11. Google December 2021 Update on Product Reviews
Over time, Google started receiving feedback from users regarding the usefulness and trustworthiness of review content. Users told Google that they trust reviews with evidence of products actually being tested. They also conveyed to Google that they prefer to have more options to purchase the product.
Therefore in December 2021, Google rolled out two new best practices for product reviews.
Now if you are writing reviews on any products, then, you should;
- Provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
- Include links to multiple sellers to give your reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.
Now you need to describe key choices in how a product has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer says. How a product has evolved from previous models or releases to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users in making a purchase decision.
Pro Tip: To make on-page SEO more effective, include links to other useful resources (your own or from other sites) to help a reader make a decision.
In short, Google product reviews algorithm update says, “the overall focus is on providing users with content that provides insightful analysis and original research, content written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well”.
12. Use Schema Markup
Schema Markup is among the most powerful evolutions in SEO. Schema markup uses a unique semantic vocabulary in microdata format to add to your HTML to boost your website rankings in higher SERPs.
13. Improve Site’s Dwell Time
Dwell time is the amount of time that passes when you click a search result and subsequently return to the SERPs. Google measures how long people are spending time on your webpage. Dwell time is an important Google ranking factor.
14. Update Outdated Content
If you have enough content on your website (over 500 blogs), then how many pieces of content a blogger should create in a week? 5, 7, or more than that?
Actually, producing one content in a week is enough for your site.
Globally recognized marketing experts like Neil Patel and Brian Dean also advise producing one new content in a week and updating at least three old and outdated content. It brings high engagement and traffic on search engines such as Google, and Bing.
15. Delete Zombie Pages
Zombie pages are those dead pages that are driving zero traffic and slowing down your page speed. If a few blog posts are having thin content and do not drive any results, delete all these pages as soon as possible.
For example, e-commerce product pages with zero sales, Archive pages, Thin content or boilerplate content, and old services pages are also considered Zombie Pages. Keeping these pages on your site can hurt your ranking badly.
Always remember, Google prefers one strong page over 100 thin pages.
In one experiment, Proven.com deleted 40,000 zombie pages from their site, and as a result, their traffic boomed by 88.3%.
16. Do Noindex for the Category and Tag Pages
If you are on WordPress, I highly recommend you not index the category and tag pages to avoid duplicate issues. These tags do not bring a significant amount of relevancy to the readers so that you can Noindex them easily.
So, Noindex is the right strategy for category pages that add little or no value to your website.
17. Engagement, Comment, and Bounce Rate
If your content has a low bounce rate and gets more comments, Google receives positive signals that this particular content is super engaging and people are liking it. So, let’s rank it better.
So, yes! getting more comments and engagement can hook your web page’s ranking.
SEO is not just about the webpage anymore; it’s about the content within the apps and content within your featured snippets like the structured data.
~Barry Schwartz, Founder of Search Engine Roundtable
On-Page SEO Factors in Google Ranking
Now, the question is how to optimize your content for SEO? So here are the best practices for on-page SEO.
18. Include Keywords in the URL
In on-page SEO, placing keywords at the right place is very essential. Including focus keywords in the respective URL is another way to optimize your content. Though Google verified, it is a minimal factor in Google’s ranking. But still, it provides the right information to Google about your blog posts and more credibility in the eyes of users.
Also, adding a keyword in the subdomain boosts the ranking related to that keyword.
19. Use Short URLs
The URLs of your blog posts play a very crucial role in Google ranking. Google officially verifies that the short URLs do well.
Try to mention your pillar page and main keyword in the URLs. The ideal length of a URL limit should be less than 75 characters.
