The three most important elements that Google look at to decide where to rank a website are:
- Content - Does the site have good quality text, images or rich media content? Is that content relevant to the keywords searched for?
- Incoming links - How many quality links from reputable websites does the site have? How relevant are they?
- RankBrain - An A.I. algorithm designed to put the best results first.
Google have recently announced that Content and Incoming Links have equal weighting, with RankBrain's evaluation being the third factor, however that's not the complete story and there are actually over 200 other major SEO factors that Google look at, as shown in the infographic below. Elements at the top of the image are the most important, those in red at the bottom of the image are best avoided!
Most SEO experts know that to rank a website well in Google you have to have good website content and high quality backlinks to your site, but how does Google actually measure this? What elements of your site can you control to help rank well in Google? How should you prioritize different aspects of SEO?
This infographic tells you the 200 SEO factors with guidelines on how to optimize your website for each and is ordered by priority, with the most important factors at the top. It also shows some factors that could get you penalised by Google and are best avoided and includes the odd SEO myth – factors that are often discussed, but which don’t actually affect your website one way or another.
The infographic was designed by Allison Carmichael for the French SEO Team and includes everything from on-page SEO to link building, Google algorithms, social media and web spam tactics that are best avoided. It also shows how elements of web design can impact your long-term SEO. We've taken SEO in a broader context and have included elements on user-friendliness and factors that can help you generate sales or enquiries once visitors arrive at your site. We hope it helps you to optimize your website!