New Google Ranking Factors 2020 Bloggers Should Know

New Google Ranking Factors 2020 Bloggers Should Know.

Google has added some new ranking factors to its algorithm for providing a better user experience. Many Bloggers and YouTubers might be excited to watch the video "Search on 2020" on YouTube.

 

It may be good news for you, but many websites will drop the ranks after the implementation of this update in November 2020. As a White Hat SEO practitioner, you should not be worried about it. 

Google 2020 core updates may cause loss of traffic and ranking drop for the site optimized by the Black and Grey Hat SEO practitioners. As a result, you will see the folds of anxiety on the foreheads of many of them. 

 

The days of page ranking by stuffing keywords on thin content are no more. That's why techazu recommends following the best SEO practices.

Google is committed to providing users with high-quality information so that they can update their algorithms frequently. If you promise to create and update quality content to meet the needs of users, there's nothing to worry about new ranking factors. 

Take this as an opportunity for new bloggers to climb the top of the Google search results page.

Search on 2020 Highlights

Language expansion of BERT

6 more languages viz, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi Arabic, German, and Amharic are added to BERT.  

The full form of BERT is Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. It is a  pre-trained natural language processing model (NLP).

BERT is connected with SEO. Moz has explained nicely what BERT is and how does it works.

Advanced Protection Program

 Enhanced protection of Safety and Privacy of users' data.

Data Set Search

You can find datasets to support your research or story

Common knowledge

Opportunity to explore civic data such as education, economics, infographics at a glance.

Data commons

open knowledge repository that combines data from public datasets.

Flourish

Features of visualizing data using customizable templates.

Pinpoints

You can upload and analyze a large number of documents with Google AI Search.

Upgradation of Google Map

More advanced search features in google maps.

A lens in the Search Bar 

You can use a lens in the search bar of Google to enhance the reading experience.

Paragraph Ranking

A specific paragraph of your content may act as a ranking factor.

Wider Range of results for broad searches

Screenshot of search 2020 presented by Google

SEO experts know that Google updates its algorithm periodically to keep search results useful for its users. Google announced the latest Core Update in May 2020, when I started blogging. But I didn't know about it at that time.

When Google started implementing it Gradually, it was reported that many websites have badly affected due to the core update. A significant loss in web traffic was observed by the site owners and webmasters.

The latest core update during the coronavirus epidemic has made the worst websites question whether Google's engineers could better determine this update of the search algorithm.
Source: ITCC.

Many new bloggers struggle to rank their sites on Google since the idea of the search engine ​​ranking parameters remains foggy to them. 

The transparent comprehension of ​​Google's ranking factors is essential for bloggers to gain the organic growth of their sites. To rank webpages on search engine result pages [SERPs], you must be familiar with the ranking parameters of search engines.

Like Techazu's other articles, this content will help new bloggers optimize their content effectively.

Technical SEO of Ranking Factors

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), we talk about three types of it, On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, and technical SEO. Technical SEO is an integral part of on-page SEO that focuses on the technical aspect of your site. 

It helps to make your site technically strong. As a blogger, your primary focus is to find out the most important ranking factors and to optimize the webpages to rank on SERPs.

Optimization of technical elements enhances the user experience and helps the search engines understand your website better. Minimizing duplicate content, creating a sitemap, reducing page load time, fixing the broken links are some examples of technical SEO.

It is true, to rank on Google and drive organic traffic to your site, you need to optimize several ranking factors of the search engines. However, Soaring to the top of SERPs takes time, don't expect overnight success.

If you know the factors that affect your pages positively or negatively, the search engine optimization for your blog will become easy. 

Optimization of the ranking elements of search engines helps increase the organic traffic unbelievably on your site.

When I launched my first site Edumedia in May, I had no idea regarding the search engine ranking factors. As a result, despite posting more than 30 high-quality content, the average daily pageviews to the blog were under 25.

By the end of September, the total page views of 5 months were around 2,200, whereas the page views of techazu have crossed 2000 despite a 55 days old baby.

At the beginning of October, I focused on updating the old content instead of publishing new content on edumedia. Besides, I audited the site repeatedly with the help of the Ahref webmaster tool. After detecting several issues, I fixed them one by one.

That was the turning point. On October 19, I was surprised to see a single-day page view of 890.

Look at the screenshot of Google analytics.

Pageviews of edumedia after optimization of google ranking factors

Three weeks ago, the health score of the site was 71. More surprisingly, yesterday it was 88, and today, the score increases to 92.

How did this miracle happen? That happened because of the discovery of Google's most important ranking factors and optimizing content accordingly.

Why should you know about the search engine ranking factors?

The learning of SEO starts with the ranking factors of search engines like Google and the process of crawling and indexing. Therefore, it is essential to know the ranking factors of Google for better optimization of webpages and your site as a whole.

We all know that for every search, Google presents the best useful information to the users. But how Google finds out the most relevant information from billions of webpages within a fraction of a second is a million-dollar question.

Every blogger should know the process of scrawling the webpages, organizing, and indexing tons of data, and finally presenting the most useful information to users in response to their search queries. 

Bloggers, YouTubers, content marketers, and any other website owners, specifically those who are new in the digital world should understand How Google's Search Algorithm Works.

Google has clearly stated, 

''Search algorithms look at many factors, including the words of your query, relevance, and usability of pages, the expertise of sources, and your location and settings. The weight applied to each factor varies depending on the nature of your query—for example, the freshness of the content plays a bigger role in answering queries about current news topics than it does about dictionary definitions''.

Correlation between Google Core Updates and  Ranking Factors.

The followings are the notable points about core updates and their impact on the webpages. Core update means the significant changes to the algorithms that google made several times a year.

 

Google usually do some changes to its search algorithms each day to improve the search results.

Google confirms the core updates in advance.  Google clarified it other statements -

''We aim to confirm such updates when we feel there is actionable information that webmasters, content producers, or others might take concerning them. For example, when our “Speed Update” happened, we gave months of advanced notice and advice ''.

''However, we’re constantly making updates to our search algorithms, including smaller core updates. We don’t announce all of these because they’re generally not widely noticeable. Still, when released, they can cause content to recover if improvements warrant''.

'' We confirm broad core updates because they typically produce some widely notable effects. Some sites may note drops or gains during them. We know those with sites that experience drops will be looking for a fix, and we want to ensure they don’t try to fix the wrong things. Moreover, there might not be anything to fix at all''.

''Broad core updates tend to happen every few months. Content that was impacted by one might not recover - assuming improvements have been made - until the next broad core update is released''.

Why some pages or sites may drop after core updates? Google clarified it. You'll find the answer to this question in the following paragraph:

''There’s nothing wrong with pages that may perform less well in a core update. They haven’t violated our webmaster guidelines nor been subjected to manual or algorithmic action, as can happen to pages that do violate those guidelines. In fact, there’s nothing in a core update that targets specific pages or sites. Instead, the changes are about improving how our systems assess content overall. These changes may cause some pages that were previously under-rewarded to do better''.

Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog.

How many Google Ranking Factors are there?

Perhaps you know the answer, and you might have a list of it. Yes, there are approximately 200 Google ranking factors, but all are not proven.

There are direct and indirect factors. Positive and negative ranking factors are there.

Besides, Brian Dean, the owner of Backlinko mentioned, some factors are controversial and some are speculative.

So you need to filter the list of so-called 200 ranking factors to identify the most important them. This content is meant for those who want to get a ready list of the most effective search ranking factors in 2020.

20 Most Important Google Ranking Factors 2020

I am providing here a list of 20 important ranking parameters. Considering all these while doing SEO will help in the organic growth of your site. These are given priority in most web site audit reports.

1. Page Load Time/Page Speed

Make sure that your website is fast, optimize the page loading time for both, desktop and mobile. Users want to get answers fast to their search queries. July 2019 onward, page speed in mobile search became an important ranking factor.

First contentful paint (FCP), Largest contentful paint, First input delay (FID), Time to Interactive (TTI), Cumulative layout shift (CLS) are some important metrics to measure the performance of your site. 

Use Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights, amazing free tools provided by Google to measure the speed.

2. Mobile-friendly Site 

Is your site/webpages mobile friendly? Make a Mobile-Friendly Test, as it matters for ranking on SERPs.

We know Google loves mobile-friendly sites, but what does mobile-friendly means? It means a site optimized to fit with the mobile devices of the users.

Responsive theme, the page display, readable font, visibility of the image, and infographic are some elements to be optimized.

3. Domain Age

To appear on the first page of search results, domain age matters. According to a study by Ahref on 2 million keywords, only 22% of pages created within 1 year appeared in the Top 10 list. The older the domain (and pages), the more likely it is to climb on the top.

However, this doesn't mean the age (site and pages) is the only ranking factor. Multiple pages of Edumediawellness are ranking on the top of Google Search (3 months old domain).

4. Privacy Policy and Terms of Service 

These 2 static pages establish the trustworthiness of your site to google and the users. Therefore, the visibility of these pages is a good ranking signal.

5. Contact Us Page

This is another static page that enhances the credibility of your site. The contact page sends google a positive signal for ranking.

6. Keyword in Domain

The keyword in the domain is a strong signal. A Domain containing keywords have ranking advantages compared to others.

7. Keyword in Title and Description

Keywords in title and meta description play an important role in ranking. Both the title and meta descriptions appear on the result pages of search queries.

8. Content-Length

Lengthy and informative content has the advantage of ranking over short-length content. Google prefers high-quality long content that you'll find in Content Optimization: Brilliant SEO Techniques on this site.

9. Use of Bullets and Numbering

The use of bullets and numbers enhances the readability of the users. It is especially helpful to mobile users. So you should make a habit of using bullets and a number list of your content wherever needed.

10. Image Optimization

Apart from image quality, compressed image [image size], file name, and Alt text for images matter. The properly optimized image appears on the search pages on a specific image search. Image optimization also helps to rank your webpages.

11. Multimedia in the content

The use of multimedia elements like infographics, videos act as relevant ranking signals.

12.Blog commenting

I've published content on blog commenting in which I described the ranking benefits of it and the way to find relevant sites for commenting.

13.Directory submission

Directory submission is an off-page SEO element that helps rank your site if you use the effective method.

14.Social Presence and engagement

15.BackLink  

Backlinking sends Google a strong ranking signal if the links pass link juice or value to your site. However, the linking domain's Relevancy, Authority, Trustworthy, Age, and Do-follow attribute, etc are to be considered.

16. Internal Links

Reasonable numbers of relevant internal links help your webpage to rank higher. Internal linking means to link with other relevant content of the same domain.

17. Natural Link Profiles

A well-diversified and healthy link profile sends positive signals to search engines. Inbound Links pointing to one or two sites is unhealthy. You will find many tools for the assessment of the inbound link profile. Website Audit reports also help to analyze the link mix.

18. SSL Certificate.

The use of an SSL Certificate ensures website security and act as a ranking signal. 

19. Sitemap

An XML sitemap helps Google better index the pages of your site. Despite an HTML site map is a controversial factor but you should create it as there is no harm to submit.

20. Use of Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Integration with Google Analytics and  Search Console may act as a relevancy signal apart from the traffic analysis.

Two Bonus Tips for ranking your page on SERPs

1. List your business with Google My Business (Local search) and keep updating. 

2. Add your location to Google Maps.

Final Thoughts

The essence of this content is- most ranking elements are not stable. Many ranking factors become less important as a result of algorithms core updates. 

Moreover, You can’t optimize all the ranking elements in your whole life. From November 2020,  you should focus on the most important page ranking elements and the newly implemented search features.

Content is the king. You should optimize content to enhance quality for the satisfaction of your target audience. Focus on creating high-quality, informative, and useful content for the users. In this content, I hope you have got a comprehensive guide on the Google Ranking Factors.

Related Video on New Ranking Factors

Updated information on Passage indexing

Confirmation by Google on Tweeter On 20th October

Google is still indexing pages

''This change doesn’t mean we’re indexing individual passages independently of pages. We’re still indexing pages and considering info about entire pages for ranking. But now we can also consider passages from pages as an additional ranking factor….''

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 20, 2020

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