Deep Dive into Google’s Ranking Signals (Part 1)

Content is foundational to how Google and other search engines work. It’s also a key ranking factor, and there’s very little evidence to suggest otherwise.

Google wants to show its users high-quality, relevant and useful content, and it will use many aspects of that content to gauge whether it’s the best answer to a user’s query.

In this piece, we’ve set out to explain exactly how Google views and ranks content on its search results by comparing two web pages discussing the same topic — Term Insurance with Return of Premium (TROP).

Keyword Prominence:

Keyword prominence refers to where your target keywords are found on a page, i.e., in the page title, in headings, within the content, etc. The closer the keyword is to the title or beginning of the page, the more prominent it is^[1].

Taking the 5 primary keywords we’ve identified –

Term Insurance With Return Of Premium (1900),
Term Plan With Return Of Premium (1900),
Term Plan Premium (1000),
Best Term Insurance With Return Of Premium (880),
Term Insurance Premium (880)

We’ll be looking at two pages that rank for that keyword –

Max Life Insurance (Position 1, as of 27 September 2024) and
Bajaj Allianz Life (Position 9, as of 27 September 2024)

Let’s analyse these pages for keyword prominence and how Google uses it as a ranking signal.

We first start by breaking down its meta elements – the title and meta description.

Page Titles and Meta Descriptions:

The Page Title is an HTML element on the head of a webpage that gives users quick insight into the page’s content. It’s also called “title tags” or “meta titles” and is used more than 80% of the time by Google as clickable titles in search results^[2].

A Meta Description is a short summary of a web page’s content that is displayed as part of the search snippet on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). It’s meant to give you, the user, an idea of the page content and how it relates to your search query^[3].

Google can sometimes re-write meta descriptions for display on its SERP to better match a user’s intent or query.

Keyword Prominence in Max Life Insurance:

There is one mention of the TROP keyword in the title and meta description.

We can see that the keyword Term Insurance with Return of Premium has been used once in the page title and once in the meta description.

Keyword Prominence in Bajaj Allianz Life:

Two mentions of the TROP keyword in the page title and meta description.

The keyword “term plan with return of premium” has been used twice in the meta description, while none of the primary keywords are mentioned in the page title.

We can see here that despite Bajaj Allianz Life having more mentions of the primary keyword, it still ranks below Max Life Insurance’s page. More isn’t always better when it comes to keyword prominence.

We can also see that the Page Title has been given more importance as a ranking factor – Max Life has a primary keyword in its page title, while Bajaj Allianz does not.

You must ensure your page titles always target the right primary keyword(s).

You also need to be able to strike a balance between targeting the right keyword without having to force more instances of it within your title, meta descriptions and content overall.

Content-Length vs Depth:

Moving on to the actual content on both pages. Our analysis shows that Max Life Insurance’s page has 12469 words, and Bajaj Allianz Life has 6412 words.

On the face of it, having a longer page does not automatically equate to better rankings. If your page is able to cover all necessary information in a shorter word count, it could rank higher. Length does not always equate to expertise.

What is E-E-A-T, and How Does It Play a Role in Page Ranking?

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust) is a framework used by Google to assess the quality of content on websites. It’s what your content should aspire to if you want it to rank high.

The Google API leak also showed that E-E-A-T is a ranking signal, especially for YMYL (Your Money Your Life) content^[4]. Factors like website reputation, author credibility and overall content quality are considered.

Overall, E-E-A-T is an important factor in page quality rating. The most important factor here is Trust. Content should be honest, accurate, safe and reliable^[5].

Content Intent:

Both Max Life Insurance and Bajaj Allianz’s TROP pages are essentially product pages meant to encourage people to buy their TROP plans and drive conversions.

However, Max Life’s content focuses more on educating its readers on TROP plans and raising awareness about its policy.

Bajaj Allianz’s page centres on getting people to buy its product, evidenced by its higher mentions of purchase, buying online and getting quotes for its product.

As part of E-E-A-T, you want your content to express expertise and authority across the board. The content should provide enough information so users can make an informed decision before purchasing a policy.

For example, Max Life provides a clearer definition of what a TROP plan is compared to Bajaj Allianz –

“Essentially, a term plan with a return of premium is
similar to a standard term plan. It works as a life cover
and provides a death benefit to the beneficiaries of
the policy.

The key element that sets it apart is the maturity
benefit applicable on a term plan with a return of
premium. When the policy matures, the insurance
provider will return the premiums paid to the
policyholder.”

Max Life Insurance.

“A term plan with a return of premium, also called TROP, is
a term plan that offers a maturity benefit. It works as a
normal term plan with just an addition of maturity benefit.
Under TROP, if the life insured passes away during the
policy tenure, the death benefit is paid.

On the other hand, if the insured survives the policy tenure
and the policy matures, the premiums paid over the
policy tenure are refunded, subject to the terms &
conditions of the policy, hence the name.”

Bajaj Allianz Life

They also offer more information on who can buy their plans^[6] and the benefits offered compared to Bajaj Allianz^[7], allowing them to showcase their product better.

Max Life Insurance: Expertise and Authority:

Offers a more clear-cut explanation of their TROP Plan

Bajaj Allianz Life: Expertise and Authority:

Meanwhile, the explanation given here is more vague. It also doesn’t clearly showcase the product’s features.

Max Life’s page explains its product, what it does, how it can benefit you/why you need it, provides options and then provides a method to purchase it — all on the same page.

This shows that Max Life uses a more organic method of leading users to purchase than Bajaj Allianz, resulting in a higher SERP ranking. Overall, Google wants to provide users with informative and relevant content. So, pages that cover content in-depth have an edge over pages that only partially cover the topic^[8].

Content Relevancy:

We’ve found that using the right terminology around the keywords that you have can help your page get an edge over other competitor pages.

How Have We Done This? –

Using SEMRush data, we extracted 78 keywords that are most relevant to the landscape as a whole. We also ran a BERT Analysis on these 78 keywords and obtained their respective relevancy scores for all TROP pages on the SERP.

Terms with the highest relevancy for all TROP pages on the landscape, i.e., keywords that ranked within the top 20 of the SERP, were considered as relevant queries.

Let’s compare the relevant terms used by Max Life and Bajaj Allianz.

Relevant Queries	Relevant Query Instances Throughout the Page
Relevant Queries	Max Life Insurance	Bajaj Allianz
Term Plan With Return	38	12
Term Insurance With Return	7	9
Best Term Plan With Return of Premium	1	0
Best Term Insurance With Return of Premium	0	2
Term Insurance With Maturity Benefit	0	1

We can see that Max Life’s page has more instances of relevant queries like “Term Plan With Return” and zero instances of queries like “Best Term Insurance With Return of Premium”.

In contrast, Bajaj Allianz has more instances of terms like “Term Insurance With Return” and zero instances of the term “Best Term Plan With Return of Premium.”

This shows that you don’t always need to include all relevant queries. Using the right ones is more important.

Internal Linking and the Importance of Contextual Links:

Max Life has a total of 250 internal links as part of its content, while Bajaj Allianz has 124 internal links.

Now, you may think more links mean better rankings, but we’ve found that that’s not always the case.

Primary Keywords Used As Exact Matches

Term Insurance With Return of Premium Term Plan With Return of Premium Term Plan Premium Best Term Insurance With Return of Premium Term Insurance Premium

Using the 5 primary keywords we had identified at the beginning, we looked into instances within competitor pages that used these terms as an exact match,

i.e., instances where the whole term was used as an internal link in the content.

We’ve found that Max Life Insurance has a total of 4 instances in its content, and Bajaj Allianz Life has 8 instances.

More instances of a primary keyword being linked can give the impression of a keyword being forced as a part of internal linking. Instead, you want your page to showcase Google a more organic process of contextual linking for better user flow or page crawlability.

This is because Google uses links to understand a website’s structure. Too many internal and external links can make it harder for search engines to understand the context of individual pages on your website^[9].

Moreover, if Google detects a pattern of unnatural links, it could negatively affect site rankings.

Links are also weighted higher when used in context rather than placed within unrelated content^[10]. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean links without context will negatively impact rankings. Google is capable of ignoring low-value links^[11].

Overall, add links, but don’t overdo it. In fact, adding too many links can dilute the value of those links and can have an adverse effect.

Conclusion:

To give users the most useful information, Google’s search algorithm considers factors like the words used in a search query, content and query relevance, keyword prominence, and content expertise
(E-E-A-T), along with internal links present in the content.

It also applies different weightage to these ranking signals^[12], as we’ve showcased on our blog using Max Life Insurance and Bajaj Allianz Life’s pages as examples.

However, content is only one part of the puzzle here.

We’ll be publishing part two of this series to explain the other ranking signals Google uses as part of its algorithm to determine how a website ranks on its SERP, so stay tuned for more!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

What are Google ranking signals?

These are characteristics or elements of a website that determine how it appears in Google’s search results. Google uses ranking signals to sort its search results based on the relevance and quality of the search query.

Some examples of ranking signals are anchor text, content freshness, domain authority, page titles, content freshness, etc.

How do you check ranking on Google?

The fastest way is by using online tools. Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMRush and Sitechecker are popular rank-tracking tools that give you a complete overview of your site’s performance.

What is a BERT analysis?

BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations) is a machine learning framework used for Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. Google uses BERT to understand context and intent.

In the context of this blog, we did a BERT Analysis to find out the contextuality and relevancy scores of select keywords in a piece of content. This gave us insight into what keywords can be targeted to improve page rankings.

How to rank #1 on Google?

There are many ways to do this, namely, by optimising your content. This means looking into content depth and intent, keyword prominence, your page’s internal linking strategy and whether your page adheres to E-E-A-T guidelines.

Google also prefers fresh content. This means websites that post up-to-date content have a higher chance of ranking. The recent API leak also confirms this since Google looks at dates in the byline, URL and on-page content^[13].

So, the frequency (how often pages are updated) and magnitude of page updates (significant sections being added or removed) serve as freshness factors^[14]. Older pages that are regularly updated may also outperform newer pages.

What is a good SEO score?

Generally, anything above 80 indicates your website meets a high standard of technical SEO, content, user experience and mobile optimisation. If your score is over 90, it means your website is in the top 10% of the best-optimised websites on the web^[15].

What is mobile-first indexing?

Mobile-first indexing is when Google uses the mobile version of a webpage for ranking and indexing. For websites published after 1 July 2019, mobile-first indexing is enabled by default^[16].

Does tabbed content affect your page ranks?

Mostly, no. With mobile-first indexing, Tabbed content is given the same weightage as the rest of the page’s content. If the content on your page will be visible to users at some point, it will be included in the indexing.

However, there are ways to hide tabbed content, making it impossible for Google to crawl it. And if Google can’t crawl content, that content won’t be seen and won’t help you rank^[17].

Overall, user interface controls like in-page tabs and accordions can improve user experience and have no direct effect on page ranking.

Is the anchor text a ranking factor?

Yes, Google has confirmed that it uses anchor text to better understand pages, which can help pages rank for relevant queries^[18]. Using descriptive anchor text on your links is also listed as a best practice in Google’s SEO Starter Guide.

What are header tags, and how important are they to your page?

HTML header tags are structural elements used to help Google distinguish headings and subheadings on web pages. They rank from H1 to H6 in order of importance, with H1 usually being the title and H2 – H6 being subheadings^[19].

John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, confirmed that headings are a Google ranking factor^[20].

Note that the H1 should not be confused with the page title. The title tag/page title is the title of the entire page. They are also displayed on your browser tab, Google’s SERP and social media previews^[21].

What is Content Depth?

Content depth means being able to present content that addresses all potential questions a reader may have on the topic you are presenting^[22]. So, when creating content, explore ways to dive deeper into the subject matter rather than making general statements.

Also, content depth shouldn’t be confused with content length, which is the word count of the page.

Bio: Fadheelah Aslam is an editor at Ruglas Media with extensive experience in writing, reviewing, and curating content. She specialises in the BFSI and technology sectors and has a proven track record of creating and reviewing high-quality content. Her expertise in simplifying complex ideas into actionable insights makes her contributions highly valued across industry publications. You can find Fadheelah on LinkedIn.

Sources –

[1] – https://searchengineland.com/google-ranking-signals-complete-breakdown-391784

[2] – https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link

[3] – https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

[4] – https://www.link-assistant.com/news/ranking-factors-revealed.html

[5] –https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

[6] –

https://www.maxlifeinsurance.com/term-insurance-plans/term-plan-with-return-of-premium

[7] –

https://www.bajajallianzlife.com/term-insurance-plans/term-plan-with-return-of-premium.html

[8] – https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking

[9] – https://youtu.be/px6UBLhWKBk?t=2347