The main ranking factors in SEO are relevance, trust, and page experience signals that help Google choose the best page for a specific search.
In practice, SEO ranking factors come down to whether your page clearly answers what the searcher wants, whether your business looks credible, and whether your site works well on a phone. If you’re a local business in Orlando, that also includes local signals that help you show up in the map results for searches like “dentist near me” or “pest control Orlando.” If you want a clear plan instead of random tasks, our SEO services focus on building the pages and signals that bring calls and form fills, not vanity traffic.
Here are the main factors we see matter most for small and mid-size businesses:
- Relevance (matching search intent): Your page needs to match the service, problem, or question being searched. That starts with having one strong page per main service (not one “Services” page that tries to cover everything), clear headings, and copy that sounds like how customers talk. For local SEO, your Google Business Profile categories and listed services should match your site wording.
- Content quality and usefulness: Pages that answer fast, use plain language, and include real-world detail tend to perform better over time. For service businesses, that means explaining what you do, who it’s for, what the process looks like, and what results look like, plus a short FAQ section that addresses what people ask right before they call.
- Trust and authority: Google is trying to show a safe choice. Trust is built through reviews that keep coming in, mentions and links from other websites, and a site that looks like it’s run by real people. This is where proof content helps a lot, real photos, before and after examples when allowed, job stories, credentials, and team bios.
- Local signals (for map rankings): For many Orlando searches, distance matters, and you can’t control where the searcher is standing. What you can control is clarity and consistency: an accurate Google Business Profile, the right categories, a real service area, steady reviews, and consistent business info on reputable directories.
- Technical health and usability: Google has to crawl and index your pages, and users have to be able to use them. Clean internal linking helps Google find your most valuable pages. Fast loading on mobile, secure browsing (HTTPS), clean redirects, and no broken pages all support performance.
If you want the big picture of how these pieces fit together, start with the main types of SEO so you can separate page work, site health, and reputation building. Then layer in trust signals, especially in healthcare, legal, and home services, where people decide fast and call the business that feels safest. Our rule of thumb: build clear service pages first, connect them with internal links, then grow trust with reviews, local citations, and links.
One last note: E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) isn’t a checkbox, it’s what your site communicates in seconds. If you want a practical way to improve that, read our FAQ on what E-E-A-T means for SEO and apply it to your highest-revenue pages first.
