skip to main content
What Does It Take To Rank Well In Google Search Results?

What Does It Take To Rank Well In Google Search Results?

Google has a huge number of ranking factors that it takes into account when deciding where to position different websites in the search results. The full list of Google ranking factors exceeds 200, and they’re calculated using various different algorithms created by Google.

In this article we’re going to look at some of these ranking factors. We won’t cover all 200, but we will take a brief look at what it takes to rank well in the Google search results.

Domain ranking Factors

The first thing that Google looks at when it comes to crawling a website to determine rankings is a websites domain-level ranking factors. There are quite a few domain-level ranking factors, some are more important than others. Domain factors include things like Domain History, and whether or not there are keywords in the domain/sub-domain.

Some sub-domain ranking factors are nothing to worry about, like domain age and domain license length, but some factors should have some consideration taken to them, most significantly keywords. By ensuring you have keywords in top level domain, as the first word in domain, and in sub-domain name, you will have a slight edge over your competitors.

Site-Level Ranking Factors

Site-level factors are ranking factors concerning things found on a site including site structure & updates, content on specific pages,  duplicate content & meta information and much more.

Much like the domain ranking factors that Google takes into account, site-level factors differ in importance. Google looks at some site-level factors with high priority; high quality non-duplicate content, site structure, domain trust level, SSL Certificates and various site usability factors like mobile friendliness and responsive design. Less important ranking factors include things like the number of pages your site has, and breadcrumb navigation.

Something Google looks at with high importance is a websites back link profile, so it’s important to keep on top of your websites links in order to rank well in search results. For positive SEO effects a website should have a number of quality trusted links, and bad links should be removed from the website index.

Page-Level Ranking Factors

Page-level ranking factors are aspects that are analysed on a single page, rather than site-wide. Page-level ranking factors include things like keyword density, content length, page load speed and more.

Keywords are arguably the most important page-level ranking factor as they’re looked at across the whole page for a number of different reasons. Google checks the keyword density on a page, the relevancy of the keywords, whether there are keywords in the heading tag and description tags, and many more keyword uses when deciding how to rank a page in search results.  

Though keywords should remain a top priority page-level factor to consider, it’s important not to forget about other factors like the quality of your content & outbound links, as well as page speed and page-specific URL factors.

Need Help With Your Website’s SEO?

Now that you’ve learned what Google looks at when choosing how to rank a website in search results, perhaps you’ll want to go ahead with making some changes in order to improve your SEO.

Do you need a hand with your search engine optimisation? Whether you’re looking for help with a one-off job, or you’d like to setup and receive regular SEO services, the specialist team at UC4 can provide you with whatever services you’d like.

Contact us today on 0121 323 3636 to discuss your requirements with a friendly member of our team.