Google Ranking Factors 2022 – What Influences Your Position in the Ranking?

Table of contents:

• What Are Google Ranking Factors?
• Why Are Google Ranking Factors Important?
• Google Ranking Factors in 2022
  • Quality & Unique Content
  • Keyword Optimization
  • Backlinks
  • Internal Links
  • Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
  • Mobile Friendliness
  • Domain Authority
  • Website Architecture
  • Website Security
  • UX
  • Structured Data
• Google Ranking Factors 2022 - The Takeaway

What Are Google Ranking Factors?

In a nutshell, Google ranking factors 2022 are elements that influence the position of a website in the search results and are taken into account by the search engine. These straightforward signals help website owners to determine what to take care of and what activities to perform. Being able to meet Google requirements translates into better positions in the search results, and improved traffic. When talking about ranking factors, it’s crucial to mention that they concern different aspects of the website, nevertheless, they can be grouped as follows:

• factors directly related to the website and its elements;
• factors related to various offsite activities, such as link building.

If you modify your website to ensure that it’s in line with Google standards, you can significantly improve your positions, and attract more page visitors. In today’s entry, we’ll outline the most important Google ranking factors in 2022 you need to know.

Why Are Google Ranking Factors Important?

It’s not possible to rank high in the search results if your website doesn’t meet Google standards. If you want to attract more visitors, and improve your organic traffic, modifying your page to ensure that it’s in line with Google ranking factors is the only way to reach the goal.

Google Ranking Factors in 2022

Although it’s very difficult to estimate the exact number of elements that influence the position of your website in the search results, it’s more than certain that there are plenty of them. It’s also worth noting that Google regularly modifies its algorithms to ensure that it provides users with top-quality, unique results meeting their expectations. So, what should you pay attention to in 2022? Let’s delve into details!

Quality & Unique Content

Quality content is the first element you should focus on. To conquer the SERPs, you should create unique, and valuable texts that will position you as an expert in the field. Remember about E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) that is still a powerful Google ranking factor in 2022. Google rewards websites with unique, reliable content. Inspiring trust, and describing topics in detail will help you rank higher. Also, make sure that your content corresponds to search intent. When users type in queries like “the best gift for a 2-year-old”, they’re probably looking for a piece of advice. On the other hand, people who search for “iPhone 13 pro gold 64GB” are probably ready to buy the product and don’t need blog posts. Creating content that is in line with the search intent will help you satisfy users, and keep the bounce rate low. Apart from making your content trustworthy, and search intent-centered, you should also regularly publish new pieces or update the existing entries. Professional SEO copywriting will show Google that your page is an active, reliable source of information. Keep your texts organized and well-structured to avoid internal duplication and keyword cannibalization.

Keyword Optimization

Once your piece of content is created, it’s time to optimize it. This way, you’ll show both Google and users which elements on your website are particularly important and should be taken into account. When doing keyword research and selecting phrases you want to be displayed for, it’s important to consider long tail keywords that are in line with your business profile. Why should you focus on them? Generally speaking, they’re less competitive, which means it’ll be easier for you to reach better positions in the search results. Imagine that you run an online store with clothes. Optimizing your page for long tail, product-specific phrases like “red dress with a long sleeve” will help you reach fewer users, but these users will be interested in making the purchase. Moreover, this way you can rank high for this specific keyword. On the other hand, optimizing your content for generic keywords like “dress”, or “red dress”, wouldn’t bring you many tangible benefits, especially if your store isn’t particularly sizable and you’ve been in the business only for a while. Why? Well, in this case, it’s rather infeasible to compete with brands like Zalando, Answear, or other market tycoons. Once you select keywords you want to optimize your website for, remember to place them in:

• meta tags,
• headers, URLs,
• anchors,
• content.

Of course, don’t forget that moderation is the key to success. Placing key phrases in every other sentence will lead to keyword stuffing. This is seen negatively by Google and may decrease your position in the ranking.

Backlinks

Backlinks are another Google ranking factor 2022. While analyzing a website, Google checks the average value of the links that lead to it and the quality of referring domains, meaning domains that link to your page. Quality external links are a clear signal that your website content is a valuable source of knowledge that is willingly referred to. When building your backlink database, you should remember about proper diversification of clean, anchor, dofollow, and nofollow links. Moreover, it’s important to acquire links gradually, as an unnatural increase in the number of backlinks can be considered manipulation. Consequently, Google may penalize your page, which will have a counterproductive result.

Internal Links

Internal linking is about building a link chain that improves website navigation and helps to create topic clusters. There are various types of internal links and numerous strategies you can use depending on your business objectives. Try to put yourself in the users’ shoes and think about what products or pieces of content may be of interest to them if they’ve entered a specific subpage of your website. For example, if someone is looking at a red midi dress, they may want to get a matching bag or shoes. Benefit from cross-selling, and up-selling. Use internal links to keep visitors on the page for longer, and to help Google robots understand your website structure. Remember that your internal links should have a proper URL structure. User-friendly addresses are short and don’t include special characters, or capital letters.

Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

Websites that load for longer than 2 or 3 seconds deter users and have a negative impact on the bounce rate. In such a situation, people simply get impatient and leave the page. This informs Google that a site isn’t user-friendly and doesn’t deserve to be ranked high in the SERPs. Website loading speed and Core Web Vitals are one of the most important Google ranking factors in 2022. If you want to rank high, you should keep your score as low as possible. For this purpose, you can e.g., compress images, and get rid of unnecessary plugins.

Mobile Friendliness

Most of us browse the net on mobile devices while commuting to work, standing in traffic jams, waiting for food in a restaurant, and many more. Google knows about it. Therefore, it ranks high pages that have responsive web design, and are displayed properly on smartphones, or tablets. In April 2018, the search engine introduced the so-called Mobile First Index. In order to rank high, you should offer the same content on the mobile and desktop versions of your website. In the modern world full of technology and mobile devices, it’s a real necessity to take care of responsive web design.

Domain Authority

The age and authority of your domain are still considered to be one of the most important Google ranking factors in 2022. Domain Authority (DA) is Moz’s ranking score used to evaluate how high a website is likely to rank in the SERPs. Domain authority can range from 0 to 100, where 100 is the best possible result which means your page is valuable and reputable. Generally speaking, the older your domain and the more quality backlinks it has, the higher its DA. It’s possible to improve your Domain Authority by acquiring quality backlinks to your site and saturating it with unique, quality content that engages users.

Website Architecture

In simple words, website architecture is how your page content is organized. If it’s done properly, both users and Google robots can easily access all the necessary pages and features. To improve your navigation and architecture, you should implement breadcrumbs, and structure all the elements logically so that users can find what they’re looking for.

Website Security

The security of users is crucial for Google. For this simple reason, websites that have a valid, correctly implemented SSL certificate are rewarded by the search engine and ranked higher. This certificate allows and confirms the secure connection between a web server and a browser. SSL increases the credibility of a website. If your page lacks the certificate, online shoppers may leave it and abandon the shopping cart once they realize they aren’t able to complete the transaction securely.

UX

Google strives to make the search results useful and friendly for people. Consequently, it ranks high pages that provide a positive user experience. But how does it recognize them? Does it ask users for opinions? Nothing further from the truth! The search engine takes into consideration factors such as the bounce rate, dwell time, and CTR. All these signalize whether your website is user-friendly and appeals to visitors. What should you focus on? Try to keep users on your page as long as possible and provide them with an intuitive customer journey, so that they can easily finalize transactions. This will tell Google your page is transparent and should be ranked high.

Structured Data

In a nutshell, structured data, or Schema.org, is a code used to mark pieces of content such as prices, colors, sizes, product listings, events, articles, reviews, recipes, or even local businesses. Structured data helps the search engine understand your website better and has a positive impact on how your page is presented in the search results. If you use structured data properly, you can attract more potential customers and make your offer stand out from the crowd in the SERPs. It’s worth implementing this solution to allow Google to contextualize your website content, and assign it to relevant search queries.

Google Ranking Factors 2022 - The Takeaway

Hundreds of Google ranking factors are relevant in 2022, and it’s infeasible to discuss them in one entry. Even though Google hasn’t directly confirmed the information about the factors, based on our experience we can state that focusing on them in your SEO strategy works. Therefore, if you want to improve your positions in the SERPs, refining the above-mentioned elements should help you do it. Bear in mind that Google regularly updates its algorithms to ensure that it provides users with the most accurate and quality search results. Staying up to date with industry news, analyzing trends, and being quick to react will allow you to take necessary steps when needed, and will translate into reaching better positions in the organic search results. This is an update of an article published in 2019.