How to Get to the Top of Google: Top SEO Ranking Factors

ranking on laptop

Wondering how to get to the top of Google in your niche? You’re in the right place.

Moving up the search engines helps improve your business’s visibility, and can mean more money and authority for your website.

In this short guide, we’ll look at Google ranking factors and what matters most about getting to the top of search engines.

Content

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It’s repeated so much that it’s becoming cliche. But it can’t be overstated. If your website isn’t full of good content, it won’t rank high for Google.

Remember, Google’s job is to solve the user’s problems. If people go to your website and don’t find answers they’re looking for, Google won’t rank you high.

So whether you’re creating the content in-house or paying a third-party service, make sure you’re putting out good stuff. Now and in the long run, it matters most.

Keywords

Keywords, or the search terms your site will rank for, are how people find you to begin with. Any good SEO campaign takes these into account.

Be sure your keywords are relevant to your demographic and the niche you serve, or risk Google not believing you’re an authoritative website.

Keep in mind: one ranking factors survey in 2019 found keyword density was the 6th most important thing to consider over the next three years. (The others are covered in this article.)

Mobile Responsiveness

If your website doesn’t perform well on smartphones, it’s never going to perform well. This term is called mobile responsiveness, and it matters a lot.

According to one study, 211 million people will google something on their phone in 2020. For the record, that’s more than two-thirds of America’s population.

Optimize your website so that it loads fast, formats correctly on small devices, and performs well everywhere, not just on the home page.

Backlinks

In 2018, Google made a big push towards authority as the key to SEO ranking. this means that not only is your site relevant and important in the eyes of Google but to other websites in your niche as well.

That’s why backlinks, or other websites putting links to your content on their pages, is very, very important. Whether you reach out to people in your space or pay for them to put links on their site is up to you. But you should make it a priority.

Images

If you’re a blogger (or read blog posts), you know that the image is the first thing you see on a piece of content. When that content is ugly, doesn’t load, or doesn’t fit the dimensions of your device, you mentally dock that website a few points.

No matter what year it is when you’re reading this, quality images are important. It no longer works to have bad aesthetics and will hurt your brand in Google’s eyes.

How To Get To The Top Of Google: Wrap Up

The truth is that search engine optimization is a total wormhole, and there are about a thousand things that matter when it comes to ranking high.

But if you want to know how to get to the top of Google, these four answers are a great place to start. Apply them, then go further down the wormhole if you’d like. The internet will be waiting for you.