Google Ranking Factors That Matter

Google Ranking Factors that matter – As you have probably figured out by now, this article is about which Google Ranking Factors you need to pay the most attention to, which ones are less relevant when it comes to practical SEO strategy, and which ones are simply out of your control. 

Is Backlink Strategy Important to SEO in 2026 and Beyond

Before you start worrying about whether or not a backlink strategy matters, you need to understand that Google is really good at spotting “junk links.” 

So if you are planning to buy backlinks, or someone is trying to sell them to you, just don’t. Don’t do it. Not only will this not help your search engine ranking, it will probably harm your content ranking. 

But is a backlink strategy important? Yes, it can be. But only as it pertains to your willingness to produce high quality content. If you write really good content, professional content, relevant content, content that adds to the conversation, and THEN people link to it, yes, that can help you. 

Backlink Strategy – Write content worthy of other websites talking about it on their website or socials. That is the only backlink strategy worth deploying.

Tip: If you really want to get more backlinks, commission some original research and publish it. Other content producers are always looking for sources to cite. If you own the research, and you were first, it gives you the best chance to have other high quality website cite your published research as a source, which will increase your domain authority and site trustworthiness. 

What Google Ranking Factor Should You Pay Special Attention to? E.A.T

E-A-T: 

• Expertise
• Authority
• Trustworthiness

Learn More About  E.A.T: Google has termed E-A-T: 

• Expertise – E – means creating content that matches search intent. To understand search intent, you need to understand why someone might be searching Google for a particular keyword string in the first place. Google may use time-on-page and site engagement to measure this. This means that when someone performs a search, clicks on your content, do they stay there and engage with it. This indicates to search engines that someone found content they were looking for and it was relevant enough to engage with it. NOTE – bounce rates are bad for the E in E.A.T. 
• Authority – A – If lots of people are talking about you and your content, they can’t all be wrong. This is at the heart of Authority. If you are receiving a lot of citations (links to your content) from high quality websites, then Google assumes you must be legit. And it doesn’t stop with websites – social shares can also help show you are worthy of listening to. 
• Trustworthiness – T –  Trustworthiness is about the trustworthiness of your brand, but it is also about the security of your website. Bad online reviews, unsecured domains, and high bounce rates can all add to being “hit” for trustworthiness. NOTE – getting a lot of backlinks from non-trustworthy websites, can also decrease your trustworthiness, so again, don’t go buy junk backlinks from junk websites. Google knows. 

Is Site Speed Important in Search Engine Ranking Factors

Does site speed matter? For a long time it didn’t seem to matter, but it does now. In particular site speed matters in mobile search. One thing we have seen over the course of the last half of 2025 is that mobile search rankings are drastically different than desktop search rankings. 

Slow mobile site speeds in particular will lead to high bounce rates. 

It is important to remember when thinking about the mobile experience that depending on where a person is, the may have a weak signal, and if your site loads slowly because of it, it can hurt your mobile search rankings. 

Consistency in Producing and Publishing Content

Over time, being consistent in producing and publishing content has become more important. This particularly true since many of your competitors have probably figured out that if they publish more high quality content – their search engine ranking improves, and stays at or near the top. 

At a minimum you need to be posting at least one significant piece of content per month. 

In some markets, you may need to post a significant piece of content every few days. 

In a highly competitive market, where the outcomes of search engine rankings can cost millions of dollars in losses, you might need to post content several times per day. 

But regardless of the schedule, consistency matters. More and more we are seeing that if a SEO customer lets their content production schedule slip a little, it shows on their rankings. 

Summary – Google Ranking Factors That Matter

Which Google Ranking Factors matter the most? E.A.T

• Expertise
• Authority
• Trustworthiness

You need to focus on producing and publishing high quality content. You need to do so on a fairly consistent basis. 

Site Speed – Especially for mobile search

Mobile search results on Google are now often different from desktop search results. If your site speed is slow, it will increase your bounce rate, and decrease the Trustworthiness (the T- in E.A.T).

Site speed didn’t seem to impact search results until maybe the last half of 2025, but going forward into 2026, site speed matters, and you need to be on top of it. 

Yes, there are lots of other factors mentioned in Google’s 2019 core update, and updates since, but what we see as a professional SEO Company located in Salt Lake City is that these factors matter the most: 

Produce and Publish good content that people want to engage with, cite, and share. 

Be Consistent – you need to be publishing content on the regular. And the more your competition publishes, the more you need to publish. But remember, it still needs to be great content. 

If you do these things, backlinks will tend to take care of themselves, but remember, if you really want people linking to your website, then produce some original research, or share something original that nobody else has – then everyone will be compelled to cite your content as a source, which is the best kind of backlink to get. And remember, junk links from junk website impact your Trustworthiness negatively. Never trust anyone who tells you all about the high quality backlinks they can get you. If your content sucks, nobody is going to want to link to it – and if it doesn’t suck, people are going to find it and link to it anyway.