Several factors play a role in the ongoing battle for rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). In this article, we'll be looking at eight some of them and examine what is most likely to boost your website up the ranks in Google SERPs - with or without you having to lift a finger.

This one kind of goes without saying, but a lack thereof will harm your site. It doesn't matter if you put out the best content on the web. It won't last long if nobody else sees fit to link to it from their own sites/blogs/forums etc. Simply throwing backlinks around like crazy doesn't do much either. If you go overboard with it, Google might even penalize you for 'unnatural links' and make your rankings plummet further.

It is probably one of the most significant factors in search engine rankings today. Many content marketing services develop different strategies to provide you with the best content. If you have good content to share with the world, chances are the wind will carry it a long way - but still nowhere near as far as proper content distribution would! It's one thing writing a beautiful blog post all about a particular subject that people could find useful - it's another going around forums, social media sites, and Q&A websites to build up a following around your brand/site name so when people search for it, they get results from more than just Google or other directory listings.

If nobody's going to find your website in the SERPs, it doesn't matter how well optimized it is for its primary keywords or how attractive a turn-off page design is - no one will ever see it! You need traffic from people to lay your site bare in front of, and without that, search engine rankings are mere hollow statistics. Once again, driving targeted traffic isn't easy, but there are ways and means to get it done.

Social media sites today have become a big part of life online. People often use them as a starting point when searching for information or solving a problem. A strong social media presence helps drive up your SEO simply because it helps drive traffic to your website, which you can then convert into customers/leads etc.

Do you know if the search engines properly index your site? Whether it's overflowing with errors that have gone unnoticed or its structure has recently changed - perhaps for some reason, someone decided to move all of the pages around, insert loads of new ones in random spots, and so on - these are things Google takes notice of when indexing a site. If your site is riddled with technical errors, chances are it won't be ranked very high despite being optimized with keywords!

Social media sites and the like aren't official ranking factors but help passive rankings. If people share your content on Facebook/Twitter, it increases the chances of it showing up in their friends' news feeds and getting clicked on, which helps increase visibility. Also, if you're recognized as a credible source by other authority figures/sites through mentions, linking to you from theirs, and so forth - Google will take notice and rate you higher for information related to those specific keywords!

Your site may look great and have all the right keywords stuffed into its pages but is anyone visiting? How about spending money or sharing their thoughts with others? As much as search engines are looking for popular websites, not only with the online crowd but actual consumers who use them as a medium for making purchases or gathering information - it's important to keep an ear out for negative feedback. If people complain about your site through Twitter/forums etc., Google will see this downrank you in SERPs!

Man, it sounds like we're anti-backlinks here. Well, don't get us wrong - backlinks are great, and they help improve your search engine rankings, but if you rely on them alone, chances are you won't be all that successful. The big G values quality over quantity, so just having loads of low-quality links pointing at your site isn't going to do you much good. If these links are coming from sites that aren't popular or don't have any authority, forget about them having a positive effect, and if Google finds your backlist campaign to be spammy - it's not going to be pretty!

So there you have it - the eight most important ranking factors that Google looks at when determining where a site should rank. While each site is different and has its own set of issues to deal with, keeping these in mind goes a long way towards improving your chances of being ranked well by Google!