’ won’t stay on the page as soon as their problem has been solved. I recommend signing up for our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools and running a crawl of your website. Catching and fixing glitches early can save you from mysteriously missing out on search traffic.
Why is mobile optimization crucial for SEO?
Although Mobile-first indexing is not a ranking signal, the content on your website will be analyzed and ranked by Google according to the mobile version of the site – not the desktop one. Optimization for mobile devices started to be a ranking signal in 2015 when Google announced a mobile-friendly update. Not if you mean there’s some technical thing like with speed that we can measure directly.
In the previous section on crawling, we discussed how search engines discover your web pages. After a crawler finds a page, the search engine renders it just like a browser would. In the process of doing so, the search engine analyzes that page’s contents. Non-text media forms (images, video, GIFs, etc.) should not be used to display text that you wish to be indexed.
It’s important to stay up to date on the latest ranking factors and regularly use an SEO audit tool to scan your site to ensure that you’re following the most up-to-date SEO best practices. For example, John Mueller, a prominent Google Search Advocate, has stated that domain age isn’t a ranking factor. However, the Google algorithm leak confirmed that domain authority does impact rankings. When you want your content to rank at the top of relevant search results, the ranking factors above are important to keep in mind. Yet some SEO experts also consider somewhat controversial factors.
How Storyly Increased Conversions by 80% with Exit-Intent® and Content-Gating
- The more thought and effort you put into users’ experience, the more your SEO score will improve.
- Ideas, concepts, products, and information are all constantly evolving, and users’ changing expectations are aligned with that.
- If you’re curious to learn more about Google and its impact on SEO, check out our timeline of Google algorithm updates.
- Addressing CLS by ensuring images and embedded resources have dimensions can prevent layout shifts.
- I’ve spent years refining the art and science of SEO, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
- Front-end performance and metrics like “document loaded” and “fully rendered” show no correlation with search engine rank.
In this post, you’ll find the 40 most important SEO ranking factors along with actionable tips that will help you improve your SEO considerably. Instead of focusing on the optimization of just one keyword, develop topical clusters that illustrate your site’s authority on a subject. Write several pieces that are in-depth on a core topic and internally link them to gain more relevance across a wide variety of queries. Beyond site speed, check Google’s Core Web Vitals—Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative SEO Anomaly Layout Shift (CLS).
This was largely expected, as (for example) the number of connections a web browser uses to load a page should likely not impact search ranking position. For the purposes of brevity, in this section we will just highlight the particularly noteworthy results. Again, please consult the raw performance data if you wish to examine it for additional factors. Readable content enhances user experience, encouraging visitors to stay longer on your site, which reduces bounce rates and signals to Google that your content is valuable.
Social Media Profiles in Search Results
The reasons for changing your hosting provider may outweigh this negative factor. The history of your domain also has an impact on how your site performs. Exact match domains or EMD’s as they are known, used to rank very easily. According to Colm O’Regan from Science Copywriting, using infographics, charts, graphs, and images make your article look more credible and improves UX. For example, searchers landing on a page from a query like ‘what day is Christmas on in 2025?
The number of comments a given URL has received on Facebook will impact rankings. Pages that attract user engagement in the form of comments are a clear signal of quality and user interaction. Sites that have a high percentage of returning visitors are deemed to be of higher quality than sites that don’t get many return visitors. A lower bounce rate attracts higher visibility in the search results. A negative link velocity will have a negative effect on your visibility in search. John Mueller explains that no follow links aren’t included in the algorithm.
Local results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your search. If using ChatGPT’s Browse with Bing feature, your rankings in Bing’s organic search results will influence whether ChatGPT cites your website.
If the channel has a high watch time on a special topic, it gets a so-called authority from YouTube. This means that future videos on this topic will be ranked even higher. Learn more about targeting this AI experience with our guide to Bing’s generative search. For more tips, check out our walkthrough on how to improve your visibility in Meta AI. As Google’s dedicated AI chatbot, it’s no surprise there is a correlation between Gemini responses and Google search results.
