The Top 5 Google Ranking Factors For 2020

1. Content

Without well-crafted, user-friendly content you have nothing to optimize. You cannot rank a website or social channel on Google which is content starved. 

SEO and content marketing are like PB&J. They go together. They just fit. They work well together. The crux of the problem is that many believe that SEO and content marketing are separated, as if they were two very different things. The truth is, however, that they go together, overlap, cohere, and blend.

SEO works to optimize that well-crafted content so it is found, and more importantly, consumed. The ultimate goal: engagement and new leads. The internet is expanding so fast in terms of content, live video and short videos (on YouTube and within your website) work the best.

2. Targeting Specific Audiences; Niching Down

If you don't niche down, you are competing with everyone else. You simply come across as a “me too” brand if you don’t niche down. Your brand will appear to offer nothing which is unique or exciting. 

Rankings are too hard to target when you do too much of everything. Great marketing is about focusing your efforts and budget to cater to very specific audiences, and very specific requests, desires and requests. 

Hyper-local success - for search marketing purposes - conducts extensive research on what their audiences need and want, and then strategically creates insightful content around those keywords and search demands. 

3. Being In Full Control Of Your Traffic

If you don't control your traffic through paid ads, social sharing, and wise content optimization - very few people will ever find your “beautiful website.”

Directing traffic to your website and content (blogs, FAQ, videos, etc.) is key to your ranking. An SEMrush report states that even after adding five new ranking factors to their annual report, directing traffic is still the most influential. That is, when many users go to your website directly, it signals to Google that your website has high authority and value.

They concluded that Google prioritizes websites with more authority and more direct traffic when ranking any high-volume keyword.

4. User Engagement and User Generated Content

All search engines prefer to rank content that has high user metrics such as high retention rates, engagement, and user generated content.

The absolute best User Generated Content is positive reviews on Yelp and Google My Business sites. Many, positive reviews not only ranks high with the search results within Yelp and Google, but it signals to audiences that you are the best choice. 

Proactively putting into place systems to generate genuine, positive reviews can attract hundreds of new customers for your business on an annual basis. 

5. Social Signals

Sending traffic and users from social platforms is almost the best way to create higher rankings.

While most businesses have a Facebook page and a YouTube channel. But very few businesses know how to run ads from these platforms, as well as how to create content that drives traffic from that socially-shared content back to their website. 

How I Can Help You

On all five points above, I can help any small business to develop an Action Plan to help drive more traffic, increase rankings and to attract more customers.