100+ SEO Ranking Factors That Affect Your Google Rankings

These days, SEO is one of the main ways to optimize a website in support of a business, and almost every business owner uses it to grow online sales. What you need to understand is that many SEO ranking factors affect where your target keywords rank (people new to SEO often don't realize this and keep wondering why their website sits near the top one day and further down the next). If you want to go deeper into SEO, you need to understand the points below. I'll share the Google ranking factors compiled by Joe Handaya, a master of SEO from Indonesia:

Domain Factors

1. Domain age
2. Domain registration length
3. Domain history
4. Keyword in the subdomain
5. Private or public WHOIS
6. Website owner (as listed in WHOIS)
7. Country-code top-level domain extension (.id, .us, .uk)

Page-Level Factors

1. Keyword in the title and description
2. Keyword in headings (H1, H2, H3)
3. Keyword in the URL
4. The keyword that appears most often on the page
5. Content length
6. Keyword count (keyword density)
7. Latent semantic indexing (LSI): related keywords in the content
8. Page load speed
9. Duplicate content
10. Rel = Canonical
11. Image optimization
12. Content updates
13. Sitewide changes (theme or content)
14. Keyword prominence and word order
15. Quality and number of outbound links (backlinks)
16. Grammar and spelling
17. Syndicated content
18. Quality of internal links
19. Broken links
20. How long visitors spend reading the content
21. Affiliate links
22. HTML / W3C errors
23. URL length
24. Human editors
25. Internal link anchor text
26. Page category
27. URL string
28. References and sources in the content
29. Page priority in the sitemap
30. Too many backlinks
31. Page age
32. User-friendly page
33. Content quality

(Check these with SEOquake or similar tools.)

Site-Level Factors

1. Quality content (memorable and genuinely helpful to readers)
2. Contact and About Us pages
3. A trusted domain (free of viruses and malware)
4. Website design
5. Site updates
6. Number of pages
7. A sitemap
8. Uptime (how reliably the site runs 24/7)
9. Server location
10. An SSL certificate
11. Schema microdata
12. Terms of service and privacy policy
13. Duplicate meta information
14. Breadcrumb navigation
15. Mobile-friendly design
16. Site usability
17. Use of Google Analytics and Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)
18. Visitor reviews / site reputation

Read nextHow to Do Keyword Research for an International Audience

Backlink (External Link) Factors

1. Linking domain age
2. Alt tags on image links
3. Links from .edu / .gov domains
4. Authority of the linking domain
5. Links from competitors
6. Social shares
7. Guest posts
8. Links to the homepage
9. Linking out to spam websites
10. Nofollow links
11. Diversity of link types and niches
12. Sponsored and contextual links
13. Excessive 301 redirects
14. Backlink anchor text
15. Link title attribution
16. Country TLD of the referring domain
17. Link placement in the content and on the page
18. Links from relevant domains and pages
19. Keyword in the title
20. Links from authority sites
21. Links from Wikipedia
22. Backlink age
23. Links from real websites
24. Natural link profile
25. Reciprocal links
26. Links from user-generated content
27. Links from 301 redirects
28. Number of outbound links on the page
29. Forum profile links
30. Number of contextual links
31. Quality of contextual links
32. Sitewide links

User Interaction

1. Organic click-through rate (CTR) for a keyword
2. Organic CTR for all keywords
3. Bounce rate
4. Direct and repeat traffic (visits where people type your address straight into the browser, or arrive through a link on another website)
5. Browser bookmarks
6. Google Toolbar data
7. Number of comments
8. Time on site

Algorithm Rules

1. Query Deserves Freshness
2. Query Deserves Diversity
3. User Browsing History
4. User Search History
5. Geo Targeting
6. Safe Search
7. Google+ Circles
8. DMCA Complaints
9. Domain Diversity
10. Transactional & Local Searches
11. Google News Box
12. Big Brand Preference
13. Shopping, Image, Easter Egg Result & Single Site Result for Brands

Read next6 Effective Online Marketing Tips That Get Results

Website Spam

1. Redirects (such as 301s)
2. Over-optimization
3. Ads that cover the content
4. Hidden affiliate links (pop-ups that appear suddenly when you open the site)
5. Auto-generated content (unnatural content written by bots)
6. An IP address flagged as spam by search engines
7. Too many meta tags

Branding

1. Brand name in anchor text
2. Branded searches
3. A Facebook page with likes
4. Google+, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram profiles with followers
5. An official LinkedIn company page, with employees listed on LinkedIn
6. Verified social media accounts
7. Brand mentions on news sites
8. Number of RSS subscribers
9. Business location listed on Google My Business

Social Media

1. Authority of Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Instagram user accounts
2. Number of Google+, Facebook and Instagram likes and shares, and of tweets
3. Pinterest pins
4. Verified accounts
5. Relevance

Off-Page Web Spam

1. Unnatural links (often found in comments)
2. Penguin penalty
3. A link profile with a high percentage of low-quality links
4. Irrelevant links
5. Unnatural link warnings (Moz Spam Score)
6. Penalties
7. Selling backlinks

Feel free to leave a comment below with suggestions, criticism or questions. Thank you :D

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seo-ranking-factors-complete-list-joe-handaya