Top 10 Search Engine Ranking Factors That Matter in 2025

We need to know what these website search engine ranking factors are in general and what do these Google ranking factors influence in 2021.

By Claudio Pires
Updated on October 25, 2024
Top 10 Search Engine Ranking Factors That Matter in 2025

SEO is constantly changing, and we, internet marketers, content creators, and bloggers need to keep a watchful eye on Google ranking factors if we want our website ranking on top. Google has more than 200 ranking factors that decide if your page is worthy or not, and a staggering 97% of people don’t click past the first page of Google results. But first, we need to know what these website search engine ranking factors are in general and what do these Google ranking factors influence in 2025.

What are Search Engine Ranking Factors?

In short, Google’s algorithm uses many factors into consideration when deciding which website it’s going to rank and in which position. These search engine factors greatly influence your website’s or a single page’s position in the rankings and can even determine if your company is going to be successful or not.

You must admit that it would be very hard to optimize a website to follow all of the 200+ factors and luckily, by using the 80/20 rule, we only need to optimize for 10 of the top SEO ranking factors for 2025.

What are the most crucial search engine factors to know about in 2025?

1 High-quality content

Yes, content is still king in 2025 and there’s nothing that beats unique, valuable, and fresh content that is well-structured. This is the alfa and omega of content publishing, digital marketing, and more often, e-commerce.

Having organic search traffic pouring in to see, read, or buy your content or products tops all of the social media and paid advertising campaigns. Keep reading to learn more about how to increase organic search traffic.

By publishing high-quality content that will hook your readers in, you will also get quality backlinks. This might be a slower process, especially in the beginning, but more and more publishers are opting out of active link-building campaigns and pushing their resources towards making top-notch content.

Make no mistake, backlinks are still an immensely important ranking factor, and the more quality backlinks you have, the more successful your website and your business are going to be.

3 Search intent matching: Google Ranking Factors

There’s no point writing about cute cats if all of the first page results are going to be photos, videos, and Pinterest links of cute cats. It is clear that no one wants to READ about cute cats – they want to SEE them. That’s why Google is serving only visual cues to people.

Make sure you have a clear understanding of searchers’ intent to be able to rank your posts and pages.

4 Website loading speed: Search engine ranking factors

This is the talk of the town as websites never seem to be fast enough in our ADHD society. If your website doesn’t load fast enough, they’re gone. Just think about when was the last time you stuck around on a slow-loading website.

5 Mobile-friendliness

Mobile-friendliness ties in closely to loading speed as well and internet publishers HAVE to make sure that their website and all of its pages are mobile-friendly and responsive. This includes all of the photos, videos, plugins, and ads. Luckily today, most of the themes on the market offer mobile responsiveness out of the box.

6 Domain authority

It seems like your Domain Authority or DA is never high enough and that it grows really slowly at the beginning of a new site. Yet, Domain Authority and page authority are super important factors if you want to rank your website in 2025 and beyond.

It was originally developed by Moz and it predicts how likely a website is going to rank. It ranges from 0 to 100 and can be checked at no cost on Moz.com.

7 Keyword optimization: Search engine ranking factors

Keyword optimization or keyword research is where it all starts. If we don’t want to blindly write articles that will NEVER rank, we have to find proper keywords that we will have a chance to rank for. Sometimes we get a feeling that every keyword and term under the sun was already covered by dozens of websites, and for some niches that is very close to the truth.

For that reason, people are more and more turning to long-tail keywords and they’re finding great success. If you want to carve out a position in your niche, my suggestion is to start ranking for long-tail keywords before you take a shot at the more popular and tough-to-rank ones.

8 Website architecture

Another important site ranking factor in 2025 is making sure that we have a sound website structure. If we don’t have menus that are properly up. There are loads of orphan pages or posts. So, there’s no hierarchy to them, visitors are going to bounce in a heartbeat.

9 User experience: Search engine ranking factors

Another talk of the town on our list is the coveted user experience. Google says that this is all that they’re about – delivering a top-notch user experience to people that search on Google. In addition, in May of 2025, Google is introducing its Core Web Vitals. That every website should follow and pass to get a boost in the rankings.

Make sure that your website is passing them or you will be in trouble! Like we don’t have enough problems already, Google.

10 Website security

In a world where a major website or company is hacked every day. In addition, there’s never enough security as we don’t want our website, data, customer information, and other important matters to get in the hands of bad people.

Search Engine Ranking Factors Conclusion

Now that we know the top SEO ranking factors for 2025 and beyond. So, we can slowly chisel away, one by one. In a never-ending quest towards optimizing our websites to their full potential. I know that there’s a lot to take in. But you must admit that 10 sounds much better than 200+. So, even though we mustn’t forget some other ranking factors such as EAT. The content length, duplicate content, image optimization, or even content recency.

To summarize, the most important website ranking factor equals. Fresh and original content that has some high-quality backlinks on a website. That is fast and responsive on a mobile phone and that is meeting search intent. I think that covers it. Good luck 😉

Claudio Pires

Claudio Pires is the co-founder of Visualmodo, a renowned company in web development and design. With over 15 years of experience, Claudio has honed his skills in content creation, web development support, and senior web designer. A trilingual expert fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, he brings a global perspective to his work. Beyond his professional endeavors, Claudio is an active YouTuber, sharing his insights and expertise with a broader audience. Based in Brazil, Claudio continues to push the boundaries of web design and digital content, making him a pivotal figure in the industry.