In 2024, a combination of traditional and innovative strategies remains crucial for succeeding in local SEO. Unquestionably, the well-established local search ranking factors continue to be of utmost importance. Furthermore, link signals, including inbound links from high domain authority websites, have a considerable influence on local organic rankings. They help build your website’s credibility and improve its visibility on local search results. When a user looks for information on Google, the search engine utilizes complex algorithms to assess and rank web pages based on various SEO ranking factors.
If enough people bounce from your site to the search engine results, this tells Google that your result didn’t give that searcher what they were looking for. For example, this list of content marketing tools has an eye-catching title. When lots of people click on your result in Google, you can find yourself with higher rankings for that term. And, according to Semrush, this page also ranks for 5.9k different keywords. And if your page is high-quality, you’ll naturally rank for that keyword… and lots of others. They don’t want you to stuff your title with a bunch of different keywords.
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Enhancing user experience through better design, faster load times, and clear navigation can help improve your ranking factors across the board. A high bounce rate can indicate a poor user experience, but it’s not a direct Google ranking factor. It can, however, indirectly affect your rankings if it leads to decreased user engagement and time on site. To improve your bounce rate, create high-quality content that engages users and aligns with search intent. SEO ranking refers to a website’s position on search engine results for a specific query.
Top Ranking Factors for Local SEO in 2025: Tactics You Can’t Afford To Ignore
- For the full article, each of the 200 factors would have a brief description like those above, grouped by the SEO area they belong to (e.g., On-Page SEO, Technical SEO).
- Search intent refers to the underlying reason why a user performs a search.
- Search engines can now understand content better than ever before.
- Examples of online directories include Yelp, YP.com, Foursquare, and Citysearch.
If you have an authoritative page with a link to another page on your site, that helps your visitors find the other page and pass on some authority. You’ve likely heard inbound links referred to as “backlinks.” You aim to get as many highly authoritative sites to link back to you. That also means you want to have very few inbound links from low-quality domains. Open a Google search in your in-private browser and type in your keyword. See which results are currently ranking and determine whether or not your content would be a good fit.
Bounce rate is possibly one of the most misunderstood performance indicators when it comes to search engine’s ranking algorithm. That’s why we spoke to experts all over the world to see what they consider the most important ranking factors to look out for in 2025. For many business owners, website optimization is more technical than they have time for. Before you can start optimizing for Google Maps, you need to create or claim your GBP. Without it, your business SEO Anomaly has no control over how it appears in local search results, and potential customers may see outdated or incorrect information. For example, you might be ranking on a page where very few users click, or your brand name may appear in a related search even when you are not relevant enough for engagement.
So, whether you want to call it LLMO, GEO, or the name of the week, it’s no different from SEO. Google’s AI Overviews still need source material to generate their summaries. And that source material or citation, at least at the moment, still comes from search.
BONUS: Local SEO factors
A fast-loading website provides a better user experience and is favored by search engines. Websites that take too long to load will see higher bounce rates and lower user engagement, which can negatively affect their rankings. While social media can be beneficial for brand awareness and traffic, it is not a primary ranking factor.
Search engines use advanced algorithms that assess multiple factors—such as content relevance, website quality, and user experience—to determine the best results for users. Although social signals (such as likes, shares, and comments on social media) are not direct ranking factors, they do influence SEO indirectly. A strong social media presence can drive traffic to your website, increase brand visibility, and help earn backlinks, all of which can contribute to higher rankings. We’ve discussed content in this guide to Google SEO ranking factors.
When another site links to yours, it drives traffic and signals to search engines that the site trusts you. Effective off-page strategies help establish your site’s reputation and perceived value among users and search engines. Sites that engage users for long periods of time or visit multiple pages are ranked higher. Therefore both content quality and internal links play a big part in the pages per visit metric. I’ll explain what each of those user engagement ranking factors mean below and whether each of them can help you, or hurt you. A lot of marketers are still focused on backlinks but there is no point in building backlinks if you don’t have quality content serving your core customers.
We’ll look more at linking practices to improve SEO ranking in tip #8. Though Google has penalized exact-match domains (those where the target keyword is in the URL), that penalty is generally for spammy sites with thin content. Did you know that nearly 60% of the sites with a top ten Google search ranking are three or more years old? Data from an Ahrefs study of two million pages suggests fewer sites than a year old achieve that ranking.
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