What is the most important factor in search engine ranking?

You may have read that Google uses 200 ranking factors in its algorithm. Fortunately, you don't need to master all 200 to be successful with SEO. In fact, you'd better learn about the small set of ranking factors that have the biggest impact. These are the most important ranking signals in Google's algorithm right now (in 202).

A post listing 17 Crossfit exercises is MUCH more useful than an opinion piece about why Crossfit exercises are great to lose weight. Here are three quick tips to help you optimize for E-A-T. Content should be your first priority when thinking about SEO. Quality content is how you attract, inform, support and delight your audience.

Creating authentic and valuable content is also critical to search engine visibility. In fact, that's why the periodic table of SEO factors starts with the “elements” of the content, and the first element has to do with the quality of the content. Google (and other search engines) use algorithms to determine where websites should rank in search results. One of the factors that algorithms analyze is the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to a website. For example, even Google's most famous signal, PageRank, isn't used at all in local search.

SEO professionals are becoming obsessed with semantic differences between factors, systems, and signals. Creating backlinks from other local websites can help increase your website's visibility and ranking in search engines. Researching keywords (the search terms your target audience uses) is perhaps the most important SEO factor after creating good content. YMYL rankings are managed differently than how e-commerce transactional queries are classified, and local search is also different.

When researching keywords and creating content, it's important to understand how personalization and location will affect ranking and to factor this into your strategy. SEO ranking is the position of a website on search engine results pages (SERP) for a specific search term. A high correlation between a certain SEO factor and a higher ranking doesn't necessarily imply causation. Creating and investing in a clear content strategy is critical to successful SEO, as nearly every other factor depends on the quality of the content.