How to rank higher on Google 2020

Google's ranking algorithm in 2020 prioritized three core areas: content quality, user experience signals, and E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). To rank higher that year, you needed to address all three simultaneously rather than focusing on any single factor.

For content, this meant moving beyond keyword optimization toward comprehensive, original material that demonstrated real expertise. Google was increasingly penalizing thin content and rewarding pages that provided significantly more value than competitors. If you were targeting a keyword, your content needed to be longer, more thorough, and backed by credible sources or original research. Topical authority also mattered—establishing yourself as an authority across a cluster of related topics rather than just optimizing individual pages for isolated keywords. Content freshness remained relevant, particularly for news-driven queries, but the algorithm was equally focused on whether your content was actually better than what already ranked. Creating content purely to rank had become noticeably less effective.

User experience signals were becoming ranking factors more explicitly in 2020. Page speed continued to matter, but Google was also measuring how users actually interacted with pages—bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rate from search results all influenced rankings. This meant your page needed to load quickly, but more importantly, it had to deliver what the searcher was looking for within the first few seconds. If people clicked your result and immediately returned to Google, that signaled irrelevance. Mobile optimization wasn't optional—most searches were mobile, and Google was primarily indexing the mobile version of sites.

E-A-T signals determined whether Google trusted your content enough to rank it, especially for YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) topics where accuracy mattered most. This involved building author credibility through bylines and author bios, earning backlinks from authoritative sources, getting mentioned in reputable publications, and having clear information about your business or author credentials on your site. For agencies and designers, this meant helping clients establish genuine authority through strategic PR, quality link building from relevant publications, and transparent author information.

The practical takeaway for 2020 was that ranking required simultaneous investment in content quality, technical performance, user experience, and credibility signals. Agencies succeeding that year weren't looking for shortcuts—they were building comprehensive strategies that treated these factors as interconnected rather than separate optimization tasks.