Top Google Ranking Factors in 2021: What Matters the Most?

You might have noticed that some sites do rank on Google SERPs even though they are barely optimized or have just a few or no backlinks. This is actually one of the burning questions that many marketers ask, and the reason is that there is much confusion as to what helps websites rank better.
This blog will dive deep into the subject and elaborate on all the possible Google ranking factors. So, if you wonder why your website does not rank as well as your competitors, stick around and you might get an answer to that question.
It is a fact that Google’s algorithm takes into consideration more than 200 ranking factors to figure out whether a site is worthy of ranking. These factors are complicated and that’s why people get confused when trying to understand what matters and what doesn’t.
Let’s discuss the most important ones that are usually ignored and that you should be focusing on if you want your website to rank on Google SERPs.

Click-through Rate

CTR is one of the factors that Google’s algorithm considers. It is basically a percentage of clicks that you get out of the number of people searching for what you rank for. If your click-through rate is better than your competitors, Google notices that users are liking your content more and it slowly starts to push your content up through the rankings.
Another connected factor is bounce rate . This is because people publish content with fake and deceptive titles with irrelevant content . Google notices how many people are clicking the link and then bouncing back quickly because the content is irrelevant. If that happens, it sends a negative message that people are not finding what they’re looking for.
Many less optimized websites that rank better on Google searches have low bounce rates and better click-through rates. You can check your click-through rate using different tools such as Webmaster tools etc.

Website’s Age

You might not know this, but a website’s age is one of the significant ranking factors. Most high-ranking websites have at least a few years of age.
Yes, one reason for that is because older websites usually have more backlinks and more content. However, this is not always the case. If you build a website and ad tons of backlinks, you’ll notice that you are still not getting the traffic that older websites are getting. So, you will have to consider the time factor and give it time while continuously working for improvement.

Backlinks

Nobody denies how important backlinks are for a website’s ranking. However, the issue is that it’s not only the number of backlinks that Google considers but also the authority and relevancy of the backlinks that you are getting.
The websites that are not well optimized but rank well usually have some backlinks that are high quality and not only that, but the backlinks are also pointing towards relevant pages with valuable content. For example, if your backlinks are coming from .gov or .edu extensions, it would definitely help you rank better.
Moreover, having a perfect anchor text for the backlink also helps. Google monitors the content of your page, and also the webpage that it links to in order to identify if the backlink is actually relevant. This also determines what your content would rank for.

Link Profile

It is absolutely crucial to continuously monitor the sites that you are linking to because these links can eventually act as a deciding factor in your ranking.
High-quality backlinks form a significant chunk of Google’s page score , precisely 30%. However, low-quality backlinks to irrelevant sites can badly hurt your rankings. There are tools to monitor your backlinking such as SEMrush or Google Search Console as well.
Once you have figured out the faulty links on your website, you can use Google disavow tool to eradicate these links so that they don’t potentially harm your ranking.

Quality of Content

After the recent Google updates, it can monitor the content of websites and figure out the quality. Google can determine if the content quality of a website is not good enough or if a website has duplicate content.
If you thoroughly analyze some high-ranking sites, you will notice that their content is of extremely high quality. You can only determine the quality of a website’s content by comparing it to its competitors because it is relevant.
Google thoroughly analyzes all the competitors and potentially ranks the best ones. If your website content is better than all of your competitors, you will eventually rank better. SEO service companies put a huge emphasis on the quality of content.

Internal Linking

Interlinking as we all know is basically linking one web page to another on the same site. A lot of people forget to interlink web pages properly and even when they work on it, they tend to use rich anchor text which is not the best idea. The reason is that the search has coherently moved towards long-tail keywords .
This would allow you to target long-tail high-ranking keywords for example you should not link ‘SEO keywords’ multiple times with the same text. Rather, you should focus on using long-tail, non rich anchor text for interlinking. It is definitely a game-changer.
It is indeed a long-term process, and you should not start stuffing links in your older pages but do it slow and steady and the results also take time to appear so you will have to be patient.

Social Shares

It is still debatable whether social shares improve a website’s ranking and marketers have varying opinions. Regardless, it is only logical that social shares increase traffic and that alone is a huge advantage. Moreover, more people visiting your website increases the chances of more people linking to your website and that eventually improves rankings.

Website Speed

Everybody hates websites that load slowly, there is no denying that. Moreover, when a visitor leaves a website because of low speed, chances of them coming back to the website are slim.
That is the reason why Google algorithms take load speed into consideration while ranking websites. It's not only because people don’t tend to visit the slow-loading websites, but it also makes people stop trusting the search engine itself. This is how serious it is.
There are a few steps advised by the best SEO Management Agency in Dubai that you can take to increase the speed of your website:

Choose a hosting server that is of the highest quality. This makes a huge difference when it comes to website speed.

Cleaner code can help clear out the junk and make a website faster. So be cautious while choosing a developer to work your website.

You should make use of this feature because it makes your site reach servers all around the world. Usually, the hosting companies provide this feature.

Google page speed test can give you a better idea of your website’s loading speed. Make use of it to figure out the current situation and make amends accordingly.

Brand Signals

One of the recent developments in SEO is brand signals. Google started to pay heed to brand signals because it wanted to figure out the brands that leave the visitors happy. It's because happy visitors mean more avid users which means more people using search engines.
Brand signals tell search engines that your brand has value, it has credibility, and is trustworthy. This is one of the proven ways to build trust with search engines which will lead to better exposure. Moreover, positive brand signals lead to increased brand equityin the long run .
There are ways you can build positive brand signals. You will have to work on the about section which is the go-to page for anyone looking for information about a website.
You will also have to be active on all of the key social media platforms . It helps bring an immense amount of traffic and SEO juice to your website.
Apart from the common social media platforms, try to be active on niche platforms geared toward specific industries. Of course, on the platforms relevant to your business.
You can also try signing up for review sites as well. These include Google Places, Yelp!, Yellow Pages, etc. Moreover, Google Places is an effective brand signal as well.