A check-list of 50 factors of ranking websites in 2020

The changing algorithms of Google is accompanied by mass discussions as SEO professionals and marketers. Everyone wants to understand how now you need to optimize your online store, to get to the coveted TOP. Go directly to the ranking factors in 2020. For a basis we took the Google search engine, because now a lot of attention is paid to her.

The content of the article:

Ranking factors for your domain

Ranking factors for a page

Domain

1. If earlier it was believed that the impressive domain age is ranked better, but now it is a huge role in the promotion of not playing. The chances are virtually identical and site 12 months of age, and website age of 6 months.

2. The presence of keywords in your domain gives you improve SEO that was previously. But it still works as a signal of relevancy to Google's algorithm.

3. Domain, starting with the keyword, is likely to come out ahead in the race with sites that have or do not have keywords, or it is in the middle or end of the domain.

4. The keyword in the subdomain. Experts say that this factor can also affect the ranking of a website.

5. Many disputes arise about a domain with exact match (the domain name is fully consistent with the key word, as one word or with a hyphen). Since 2012, Google has now partially lower the rating of resources due to the mass use of EMD, but even today the site has the chance to increase your ranking through EMD (count and other indicators of the site).

6. History of domain also affects the ranking, so before buying a domain name you should always check its history. In that case, if history domain were negative, you can ask the Google support to do the reset and clear history to remove all of the old links.

7. The ranking can also help the country code, for example, for Ukraine it will be .ua, Russia .EN. But it is worth considering that it will help move only within this country. If you are planning to enter the international market, it is better to use the code .com

Before the owners of the online business, the question always arises on what to focus on: promotion or brand promotion. For example, it is clear that the website with the domain Genskayaodejda perhaps be better ranked, but it anonymizes the brand. Marketers are advised to choose short, memorable domain name that is associated with the company. Ideally, the domain should match the company name. What strategy you should choose only you can decide.

Page

8. Keyword in Title tag still remains the most important factor to rank pages. Better when the key is in the start tag.

9. The key word in the meta Description tag is not an indicator to rank pages, however, affects the conversion rate (users often click on descriptions that contain the query).

10. The key word in the header H1

11. The density of occurrences of the keyword in the text. The main thing is not to overdo it, for perespa keyword page can get under the filter.

12. Page with a large number of words are ranked better. The optimal quantity is the content length of 2000 words. PS Google believes that with this number of words the subject could be fully disclosed. 2000 words is about 12 thousand characters with no spaces.

13. Table of contents of the article with links also contributes to the optimization of the page.

14. LSI words help search engines determine the theme of the article. For example, if we are talking about the cartoon "Cars", then LSI words would be: "animation", "lightning McQueen", "movie", "watch", "tickets", "online", "series", etc. If we are talking about garden wheelbarrows, then LSI words would be: "garden", "garden", "dacha", "garden", "metal".

15. LSI words in the meta tags Title and Description. To find LSI words, analyze your competition or take advantage of our special services.

16. Opening theme. More willing Google ranks the page in which the theme is fully disclosed. Apparently it affects a variety of video and media content on the page, the vastness and LSI keywords, number of characters.

17. The page loading speed based on the scanning of the HTML code. This means that HTML code should be checked for the amount of garbage that can slow down page load time.

18. The page load speed using Google Chrome. Thus, the SS determines how quickly a page loads via the browser.

19. Using faster mobile pages (AMP). AMP – not a direct ranking factor pages on desktops, but in mobile version it can affect.

20. Relevant content articles the keyword, the topic. If an article has multiple keywords, the content should be relevant to all keys.

21. Get rid of duplicate content on pages. Even the content is slightly changed, it will be a bad influence on improving the position.

22. Image optimization: title, alt, filename, description.

23. Updating content on pages. The latest algorithms of Google are very sensitive to apdejtam articles and pay attention not only to topic coverage but also on its relevance. So update all the old blog articles.

24. The magnitude of update content. The content update has to occur EN masse, and not by changing 1-2 lines in the article. The larger the updates, the more optimized is the website.

25. The frequency of content updates. Depending on the topic of the article, the updates can be performed every half a year. For such sections of the online stores like FAQ updates can be performed as often as necessary.

26. Key queries in the first 100 words of content

27. Key queries in the headers, H2 and H3. This is a milder factors for ranking a website, but they also play a role in the optimization of the page.

28. Quality outbound links. Quality links – those that lead to trusted resources that are trusted by users. If you want to check links quality, maybe you will be interested in our article "How to check the quality of links".

29. The topic of outbound links. Google takes into account the content of the pages to which you refer. Factor for ranking will be according to the names of links and content of the article to which this link leads. Try to refer to the articles adjacent to your theme.

30. Grammar and spelling of the article. Even such minor indicators affect the ranking of the page. To check the article for spelling with the help of special services.

31. The uniqueness of the content

32. Optimization for mobile version. Pictures and text should be well displayed in the mobile version of the website. This affects the ranking in mobile search.

33. Mobile usability. Check whether it is convenient to use the mobile version of the website. Ask friends and acquaintances if all they like is it easy to navigate the site and place your order.

34. The extra content. Your page may be ranked better if you added additional content, such as currency converters, online calculator, interactive recipes.

35. Too many outbound links can negatively affect a rating of the resource.

36. A variety of multimedia content

37. Internal links leading to the page. Do relink for pages and sections to distribute the weight. Pages with links are ranked better.

38. Quality of internal links. If your page will carry links from the home page or the page that has already issued well in search, it will be a better reference than if you make a linking from a page with low ratings.

39. Broken links. Through a variety of services can check their online store or website by the number of broken links and remove or replace them, as they do not affect the promotion.

40. The quality of the text on the page. The text should be a minimum water level "Medium". In simple words this means that the text useful to the user, it is to the best expert, but does not include complex terms and not like an article of dry medical encyclopedia. Article from Wikipedia will help you to understand what you must strive for.

41. Affiliate links. Affiliate links affect the ranking, but more importantly, they were not too much. Try to observe the Golden mean in consultation with your SEO specialist.

42. Validity of HTML. Your SEO master can check the HTML page code for errors and comments. It is believed that the net code is also a positive effect on the rating.

43. Domain rating. With the help of Ahrefs service, you can check the rating of your domain. A good indicator is the rating 67-69.

44. The length of the URL. Page with a shorter URL (in the range of 15-17 characters) are ranked better than long.

45. The path of the URL. Page, hidden deep in the site architecture to get more authority compared to the page, which is located closer to the main site.

46. The category in which the page is located. If the topic page is associated with the main category, it will receive a higher ranking than a page that has no logical connection. It is therefore very important at the stage of website development to consider the category structure and hierarchy. This will also help SEO specialist.

47. Tags articles, goods. Using tags you group all the content on the website. It is convenient not only for users but also for search engines.

48. The key word in the URL of the page. It's not too significant ranking factor, but it can also be used for page optimization.

49. Bulleted or numbered lists.  This is also a weak signal for Google to better rank the page, but still it is present.  Numbered and bulleted lists structure content and make it easier to read.

 50. Page priority in a sitemap.  The priority given to the page through sitemap.xml may affect the ranking.

In the next article, we will prepare another checklist of factors that affect the ranking.  These will be factors that affect the entire site and backlinks.

The author of the article, Brian Dean, is a co-founder of Backlink, a SEO strategist, and a marketer.