how to rank

Guidelines of How To Rank In Google

Google has only three technical requirements for indexation; most "SEO best practices" are web design best practices, not ranking factors - Content quality, keyword relevance, and links are the primary ranking factors; heading hierarchy and semantic HTML do not impact rankings - E-E-A-T signals receive heightened weight only for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content; for other topics, focus on helpfulness instead - Mobile-first indexing means Google crawls and ranks based on the mobile version; desktop and mobile content must be equivalent The SEO industry has a persistent problem: it conflates technical requirements with ranking factors, and both with web design best practices. A website can be poorly structured, have messy HTML, lack proper heading hierarchy, and still rank well in Google. Conversely, a beautifully designed, semantically perfect website with no original content will never rank. The distinction matters enormously because it determines where you should invest your effort. This article separates what Google actually requires from what actually drives rankings, grounded entirely in primary source documentation from Google Search Central and official guidelines. Every recommendation is verifiable and backed by Google's own words.