A Look at Google's 200 Search Ranking Factors (Infographic) An in-depth breakdown of what can affect your site's SEO.
By Eric Siu
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Maintaining and improving your website's search engine optimization (SEO) can be exhausting. Every time search giant Google changes its algorithm, business owners and their webmasters are left with their heads spinning, trying to make adjustments so their sites don't fall in Google's search rankings.
Most recently, Google rolled out Penguin 2.0, a newer version of its previous Penguin algorithm update, which aims to cut down on web spam.
While trying to keep on all of Google's changes can be a hassle, there are a large number of SEO factors that are unlikely to change any time soon. To help make SEO just a little easier, digital marketing firms Backlinko and Single Grain have created the infographic below, collecting some 200 factors that Google considers when ranking sites in its search results. The information was compiled from hundreds of sources, including SEO blogs and from statements made by Google's head of web spam, Matt Cutts.
Related: Penguin 2.0: What to Expect From Google's Next Search Update
At first glance, the information here might seem a bit overwhelming for some business owners. But there are three factors that probably have the most effect on your site's SEO:
- Target keywords. It's important to have your target keywords in your site's title tags. Google relies on this tag to determine the topic of your page. Industry studies have shown that pages with their target keyword in the title tag tend to perform better than pages without.
- Backlinks. Focus on building quality links pointing to your site. Although link quality is important, the total number of links pointing to your site is an important ranking signal.
- Social signals. Get people to share your content on social media sites. Google is paying more attention to social signals, including retweets, Facebook shares and Google +s.
While it can be worthwhile for business owners to be at least familiar with some of the topics here, this infographic can be a valuable resource to share with those on your team who are managing your site's day-to-day SEO operation.
