A link from a domain and/or page that is relevant… is much more valuable than a link coming from an irrelevant site. The anchor text of the backlink helps Google understand the topic of the linked page. Google specifically targets low quality sites with the Panda update. The easier you make it for Google to crawl your site, the higher your rankings will be.

Focus on User Experience (UX)

Stay attuned to industry trends, emerging keywords, and changes in search behavior to keep your keyword strategy up-to-date and effective. It’s not about the actual words or information on the pages but more about setting up the website so search engines can navigate and make sense of that content. Relevance is how well a local business matches what the searcher is looking for. To ensure that the business is doing everything it can to be relevant to searchers, make sure the business’ information is thoroughly and accurately filled out. User behavior indicates that some queries are better satisfied by different content formats. Notice how the different types of SERP features match the different types of query intents.

If you’re not already working with an SEO agency or a digital marketing expert, it might be time to invest in one. As search engines get smarter, it becomes harder to outsmart them. With the right strategy, you can rank higher, get more traffic, and grow your business. In this blog, we’ll cover the top 10 ranking factors experts say will shape SEO in 2025.

It’s worth considering that there are many reasons why Google would downplay the importance of links, such as to reduce link spam. Google is not going to outright claim that links are a surefire ranking factor if they can be so easily manipulated. Yes, it might be technically possible to rank without links, but more often, links do improve ranking. As long as your site is technically sound enough to be crawled and rendered, quality content continues to be the number one ranking factor. The Yandex ranking factors leak of January 2023 revealed Yandex uses around 690 ranking factors, give or take. If you want to rank, it’s VERY important that search engines can fully crawl and index the content on your page.

#31 – Size Of Content Update

• Google Search Console is an indispensable tool for monitoring your website’s presence in Google Search results.
• Although having a keyword in your domain may help people searching better understand what your website is about therefore encouraging more clicks from relevant people.
• To rank well, help Google meet its goal by creating content that satisfies users and is original, unique, and reliable.
• Lucky for all the SEO pros out there, that prediction has not yet proved correct.

The best-case scenario is where an authoritative site includes a relevant link to yours in a piece of their content. So, if the Content Marketing Institute has a link to your content marketing resource, that’ll be perceived better than if a random person with a low-quality site links to it. For example, let’s say you’ve identified “Florida real estate” as a keyword you want to rank for. You might think that writing content for people looking for real estate in Florida is a good idea. But if the people searching for that term also include realtors looking to sell in Florida, your content won’t meet their needs, and your page won’t rank. Even though both questions are targeting the same thing, Google’s results may show up differently.

Because of that, getting more social shares does help your search engine rankings, if only indirectly. So when you optimize titles, descriptions, SEO Anomaly and content to get the clicks and deliver value on the other end, you can boost your search engine ranking. Longer content attracts more links and shares too, which are two other important SEO ranking signals we’ll cover shortly.