Complying your website with Google ranking factors is the determining factor that decides the position of your keywords in the SERP. Undoubtedly, Google is the most widely used search engine, with billions of monthly users who look for answers to their queries. Therefore, Google has strengthened its ranking policies, allowing only highly-rated sites to reach the top to enhance the visitor’s knowledge.
If you are a website owner looking to rank it for particular queries, you must comply with the necessary ranking factors. This guide will provide complete details about the top 10 points to monitor in 2025.
What Are Google Ranking Factors?
Generally, Google ranking factors are defined as the criteria based on which the websites attain their positions in the search results. Previously, you don’t have to face many difficulties while ranking your site in the search engines.
But there has been a tremendous rise in the number of websites. So Google is now ranking the sites on numerous factors. More than 200 points are known to influence the keywords’ presence, showing the severity of competition in today’s era.
Top 10 Google Ranking Factors in 2025
In this guide, we will let you know about the top 10 Google ranking factors you must consider to improve your site’s rankings in 2025.
1 – Content Quality
Content quality is the most influential factor that determines your ranking in the search engine. You should write simple, compelling, and highly informative content so Google bots will acknowledge your efforts and help you rank higher in the search engine. Some essential points while writing the content are explained below.
- Uniqueness: Write unique posts and make them plagiarism-free, as Google loves to rank the latest data in the SERP.
- Simple Language: Don’t stuff your articles with difficult words. Consequently, people won’t understand you and hang off the site, leaving bad impressions.
- Length & Structure: The length of the content doesn’t matter directly. Still, you should write a comprehensive review on the topics to engage more users. On the other hand, you must give a proper shape to your posts so that Google will capture your idea and help you appear in the top results.
2 – Backlinks
Secondly, backlinks are critical to helping you rank in Google. Getting links from high authority sites indicates Google about your website’s worth and content importance and suddenly takes you high in the search results.
Conversely, low authority or comment backlinks prevent you from reaching the top. Similarly, they can also cause penalties, further decreasing your rankings. To avoid these, you must get links from high-authority sites and look forward to creating one through manual modes.
Key Attributes of Valuable Backlinks:
- Links from authoritative domains
- Contextually relevant to your content
- Editorially placed rather than paid or automated
3 – Loading Speed
Another Google ranking factor that you must consider in 2025 is website loading speed. Recently, the search engine has changed its policies and allowed only those sites to dominate the rankings, which takes less time to load. Hence, the visitors won’t get bored while searching for a query.
Therefore, you must enhance your site’s loading speed. Install the latest WordPress plugins or seek help from a third-party tool to reduce the latency.
Key Elements of Loading Speed:
- Time to First Byte (TTFB)
- Fully loaded time
- Mobile and desktop speed optimization
4 – Search Intent
There are several kinds of search intent; you must write the content accordingly to reach the top of the rankings. Google and other search engines are now getting extremely sharp and can easily recognize the users’ search intent. Ultimately, they present them only to those sites which possess the relative content.
For example, take the keyword “best gaming laptops.” Google bots have recognized that visitors are searching for top-selling products. Thus, it shows the review articles on the top in SERP. You should relate your content with the search intentions to get higher rankings.
5 – User Experience
User experience (UX) affects how users engage with your website, making it a ranking factor. A site with a seamless, straightforward, and engaging UX will keep visitors and inspire them to explore, telling Google your material is value. Positive UX includes clear navigation, understandable layouts, and engaging features. High bounce rates and low engagement metrics imply poor UX, which lowers rankings.
Key Elements of UX:
- Clear navigation and intuitive design
- Low bounce rates and high dwell time
- Readable and engaging layouts
- Accessibility for all users, including those with disabilities
6 – Mobile Friendly
A survey revealed that more than 60% of users use mobile devices to search queries. Therefore, consider this wide traffic and install a mobile responsive theme on your site. Furthermore, Google has also announced to make your websites mobile-friendly. Otherwise, you may suffer from penalties or decreased SERP rankings.
Key Elements of Mobile Optimization:
- Responsive web design
- Fast loading times on mobile
- User-friendly navigation on smaller screens
- Avoidance of elements like flash
7 – Local SEO
For businesses targeting a local audience, Local SEO is indispensable. Optimizing for local search involves creating and maintaining a strong Google My Business (GMB) profile, which includes accurate contact details, photos, and regular updates.
Local SEO also depends on consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across all platforms. Customer reviews and using location-specific keywords in your content can further boost visibility. Local SEO is especially valuable for queries like “restaurants near me” or “plumbers in [city name].”
Key Elements of Local SEO:
- Google My Business (GMB) profile optimization
- Local keywords in content
- NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) consistency
- Positive reviews
8- Core Web Vitals
Google introduced Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor to emphasize the importance of technical performance and user-centric metrics. These include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures the time it takes for the largest visible element to load, ideally under 2.5 seconds.
- First Input Delay (FID): Tracks the time until users can interact with the site, with a target of less than 100 milliseconds.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Examines visual stability by measuring unexpected layout shifts, which should score below 0.1.
Improving Core Web Vitals involves optimizing images, reducing render-blocking JavaScript, and using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to improve load times.
9 – E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
E-A-T is crucial for establishing content credibility, especially in sensitive areas like health, finance, and legal topics (YMYL: Your Money or Your Life). Authority denotes the site’s industry reputation, while expertise reflects the content creator’s qualifications.
Trustworthiness makes site users feel safe. Use author profiles, credentials, HTTPS, and favorable user evaluations to develop E-A-T. Sharing your experience and reliability boosts your site’s ranking.
How to Demonstrate E-A-T?
- Expertise: Include credentials and qualifications of content creators
- Authoritativeness: Gain recognition from authoritative sites in your niche
- Trustworthiness: Secure your site with HTTPS, have clear privacy policies, and provide contact information
10 – Technical SEO
Another critical point to ponder is Technical SEO. Generally, it is considered writing compelling content and stuffing the keywords. However, it is something more than that. You must look for other points like engagement time, click-through rate, bounce rate, and user experience. Take necessary steps to optimize them for complete Technical SEO.
Key Elements of Technical SEO:
- Crawlability: Clear site architecture and XML sitemaps
- Indexability: Use proper meta tags and robots.txt
- Structured Data: Schema markup for rich snippets
- HTTPS: Secure site encryption
Final Verdicts
All these are the details about the top 10 Google ranking factors to consider in 2025. In conclusion, the rise in online competition has caused Google to strengthen its criteria to rank websites in search engines. That’s why you must take a deep note of the essential strategies to comply with all the basic demands to improve the keywords’ positions.
Publish unique and compelling posts besides creating backlinks on high-authority sites. Further, you should complete the Technical SEO to maintain the site’s health. That’s all about this guide. Stay tuned for more information!
