What Does Google Really Care About?

Google will tell you that they simply want to deliver relevant results to users of their search engines. So, following what Google itself says, just create natural content for your website's target audience and don't do anything to try to manipulate results.

When it Comes to Specifics ...

The following gives you more specifics. You will see a 2017 updated report provided by Moz below. If you want to see all details there is a google doc here.

LOCAL SEARCH FACTORS

My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 19%
Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 17%
On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 14%
Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 13%
Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 13%
Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 10%
Personalization 10%
Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%

ORGANIC SEARCH FACTORS

Link Signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc.) 29%
On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, keywords in titles, domain authority, etc.) 24%
Behavioral Signals (Click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, check-ins, etc.) 11%
Personalization 9%
Citation Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) 8%
My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc.) 7%
Review Signals (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc.) 7%
Social Signals (Google engagement, Facebook engagement, Twitter engagement, etc.) 4%