Ranking factors that affect where you site appears in Google

Factors

Below is our list of ranking factors that affect the score of your website, which in turn dictates what number google ranks your website for a particular keyword.

In This Section

What determines a top position in Google?

No one really knows but after 17 years of study and research Vanilla Circus is best place to have an opinion.

The Age of your domain

Do your keywords appear in the domain?

Keyword in Subdomain

Domain History (long or short)

Exact Match Domain (is the domain just your core keyword, i.e. solicitor.co.uk

Country TLD extension, i.e. is your domain a co.uk

Keyword in Title Meta Tag

Title Meta Tag Starts with Keyword

Keyword in Description Meta Tag

Keyword Appears in H1 Main Header Tag

Content-Length is more than 1400 words. More.

The web page has a Table of Contents. (anchor jump links)

Latent Semantic Indexing keywords in Content (LSI), do you have associated keywords that Google would expect to see in the content?

LSI Keywords in Title and Description Meta Tags

Page Covers Topic In-Depth (Does your Content say anything different from the web page that ranks #1/Does your content provide any unique insights)

Use of trust words

Use of Commercial Content and language

Page Loading Speed

Keyword Entity Match example ‘Best Solicitor in London’, is this sentence on your page?

Duplicate Content. No just pages that are the same but the amount of duplicate content that on every page

Rel=Canonical. Do you tell Google which the main page is? It is really only needed for ecom sites.

Image Optimization, alt tags, names, titles and captions

Number of images with people

Number of images per page

Number of unique images

Number of logos

Content Recency. It just means how fresh or recently updated the content is.

Keyword Stuffing

The Magnitude of Content Updates

Historical Page Updates

Keyword Prominence

Outbound Link Quality (What websites do you link to and how)

Grammar and Spelling

Syndicated Content

Mobile-Friendly Optimisation/Mobile Usability

“Hidden” Content on Mobile

Helpful “Supplementary Content”. Everything from Twitter feeds to weblinks and References and Sources.

Content Hidden Behind Tabs

Number of Outbound Links

Multimedia

Number of Internal Links Pointing to Page

Quality of Internal Links Pointing to Page

Broken Links

Your content reading level and use of language

Google Reading Level

Affiliate Links

HTML errors/WC validation

Domain Authority

Page’s PageRank

URL Length

Website architecture and logical URL Path

Keyword in URL

Human Editors (aka authors)

Post Categories

Page Age

User-Friendly Layout

Domain Trust/Trust Rank

Site Updates

Presence of Sitemap

Sitemap submitted to Google Seach Console

Correcting Search Console Errors

Age of Google account for Google Analytics and Seach Console#

The website present on the Wayback machine

Site Uptime

Server Location

SSL Certificate

E-A-T (How are Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness expressed on the website)

Sitewide link to web design company or SEO company

Duplicate Meta Information On-Site

Breadcrumb Navigation

YouTube and the presence of video

Use of Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Argument.

User reviews/Site reputation

Core Web Vitals

Backlinks and referring domains

Backlink Anchor Text

Links From Competitors

Links from “Expected” Websites

Links from Bad Neighborhoods

Nofollow Links

Diversity of Link Types

Persistence, Intelligent & Empathetic Dental SEO

veronica tribolati

13/12/2022

Thanks Ben and Libby for your great work and efforts to improve our SEO position and increase our sales, big noticeable difference since we started working with you, we are very grateful and happy to recommend to other companies looking for your services.

Tobiasku France

13/12/2022

We have been working with Vanilla Circus, Ben, and Libby for a while now with great results so far, our rank on top keywords has improved along with an increase in traffic and qualified leads which is most critical to our business. Always friendly, professional, and responsive. Good content generation and flexible for any requests we have made. Enjoy working with them. Thank you!

Rachel Derby

03/10/2022

I’ve been working with Ben for a few months now to help create my website, content and start my SEO journey. Ben has been a delight to work with, his work is excellent and he is incredibly knowledgable which he is happy to impart to newbies like me. I find him very trustworthy and reliable and am happy to have found him.

Raj Patel

29/09/2022

Delight to work with. They have a comprehensive strategy and regular meetings to discuss progress. Could not be more happy with the team

Victoria M

28/09/2022

We got great results working with Ben at Vanilla Circus – they managed the SEO for three of our healthcare websites, all which saw a very good growth in traffic and conversions over that period. They were also very proactive in setting up Live Chat for us and getting to know our hospital, the treatment involved, how we work and what services we offer so that they could offer valuable strategic website navigation guidance to maximise sales.

Stuart Patterson

28/09/2022

Vanilla Circus provide a fully compressive and detailed service , i cannot recommend them enough. Rubbish Clearance Limited.

Rosa Bennings

20/05/2022

They are an excellent team at VC espcially Libby. I am leaving my current marketing role but will hopefully convinve my new Head Of to use you guys. Thank you for making my life easy

Emma Norton

12/03/2021

If I could add 6 stars I would. Vanilla’s ethos and approach to SEO are totally unique. It was such a relief to speak to a company that puts everything in plain English. After 4 SEO companies in London and in Manchester, we finally feel that we are not being taken for a ride and that we can clearly see things improving month on month. We are now into our 14 month and we are delighted with the results and have no hesitation recommending Ben and his team to anyone (except our competitors) Em

Brenda Roberts

15/02/2021

Excellent SEO, what can I say. We have now been working with Vanilla for over 24 months and all I can say is they quietly get on with it. Our traffic is up, are content is much better and our telephone is ringing with new patients making appointments. Ben, Libby and Martha has been amazing!