I previously reported that SEMrush (a company that develops search marketing software) released its 2017 SEO Ranking Factors Study. Ranking factors undergo small changes more than once per day, but the overall best practices you need to follow are subject to less frequent updates. So what’s important these days? Are things much different than they were back then?
Getting Up to Speed on SEO
We don’t expect every site owner to comprehend the importance of SEO (search engine optimization) to site traffic or leads. The articles in our Search Marketing blog category can help bring you up to speed. If you are ready to jump right in, I’d suggest the Website Traffic and SEO post.
The thing to keep in mind is that the higher up in the search results your site’s page is listed, the more likely prospects will find it and click the link. Getting into the top three is nirvana; top 10 is awesome; after the third page (30th), it’s usually snooze city – see ya!
So, all search engines maintain their own criteria for allowing one site to appear ahead of another. Signals that tell them one page seems to match a search better than the others. Known as an “algorithm,” these ranking factors are constantly changing. By some estimates, search Granddaddy Google tweaks its algorithm as many as 500 times a year.
Bummer. How are you supposed to keep up? You have a business or nonprofit to run. So, you contact marketing agencies like us for help and advice. Unfortunately, not all firms or consultants practicing SEO stay as up-to-date as they should, and you may get a response that worked well 10 years ago but won’t get you anywhere today.
Or, if you have the budget, hire your own team of SEO gurus to keep track of these things. Always nice to have budget.
Ranking Factors Are Always Debatable
Ask SEO professionals or search marketing firms about the most important factors and you’ll get a variety of responses, with some commonalities, but certainly disagreement over which factors carry the most oomph in getting you to the top today.
Google’s own search engineers have sheepishly admitted that they’re at the point where they’re not even sure. Automation has taken control. And it’s likely to get worse with the growth of AI.
If Google itself doesn’t know for certain, how can you?
Enter the need for robust surveys and testing, like the one from SEMrush and others who are well-known and well-respected among SEO professionals.
Now it’s time to get a little dirty by digging into what’s important, as Google sees it.
So Which SEO Ranking Factors Matter Most These Days?
I found an interesting post on Social Media Today ) They don’t just write about social media, they also have a wealth of expertise in all things digital marketing.) To keep things relatively easy to understand, I’ll summarize that post, which summarizes data provided by Ahrefs (an SEO tools site that is a great resource for SEO info) to compile a list of 8 important Google ranking factors today. Aren’t you glad we’re not going through hundreds?
- Backlinks – not all backlinks are created equal, you want natural links to your content from other authoritative sites on the issue
- Relevance – relevant content to the topic, not thinly written content that doesn’t relate to a searcher’s query
- Freshness – is the content fresh or stale
- HTTPS – is the page secure if you should enter your private information onto it or do you get a warning that it’s not
- Mobile friendliness – is it easy to use on mobile or are the page elements (links, readability, etc.) hard to use or read
- Page speed – how long it takes the page to load in a browser
- Core Web Vitals – Google’s assessment of page loading speed and time to interactivity
- Intrusive interstitials – annoying popups that block your view of the page content
So, as the above factors indicate it’s all about quality content and user experience. If a page loads too slowly, visitors will leave before they see your content, popup windows that block your view and content that is long outdated do not provide for a positive user experience. Nor does a warning that the page/site is not secure.
Quality content on a site that is easy to navigate, speedy and secure will always help and encourage visitors to share your content and other sites to link to you. That’s a good thing.
Don’t Overlook the Basics
While the extent to which each of the ranking factors makes a difference for, say, a site in the top three results or one found 79th, the difference in just about all areas is more pronounced for larger sites targeting shorter keywords (e.g., mega sites like Amazon) than it is for smaller, niche sites.
That means you can still get results on smaller, targeted sites if your competition isn’t aware of what’s important or not trying.
Older ranking factors shouldn’t be ignored. They help both sea4rchers and search engines alike. Some of the traditional ranking factors should still be followed. They can still have a positive impact, but not to the extent they did before. Such as:
Know the keyword phrase you are targeting for each page. Do you keyword research to understand what searchers might look for and what search engines think those searchers are looking for. Check your targeted keyword in the search results. What sites and subjects are at the top of the results? If the search engine returns pages that are not relevant to what you are trying to target, choose another target that does.
Include your keyword phrase in the page’s title, meta description, headings and content to help the search engine know what the page is about. Be sure to include synonyms and related words in the content as well as the URL.
Use alt tags to identify what the image is so that search engines and people who use assistive browsers or have their images turned off know what’s there. Images can be an important source of clicks to your site from image searches. The old practice of keyword stuffing can negatively affect your rankings and turn readers off.
What Else Should Be the Focus?
Based on logic and common sense:
- Where possible, build your brand awareness. Sites that have high volumes of direct site traffic do. If I know I want to buy something where I’ll have a good experience, I might go to Amazon.com, for example. But don’t just throw your hands up in the air and give up because you’ll never get that big. You can still make progress against your competition. And, once users find you and think you’re swell, they’ll add your site to their bookmarks and not need a link to get there.
- Know your levels of user engagement and strive to improve them. Factors two, three and four are measure user engagement. 3 to 3.5 pages per session seems to be good for Pages per session; a bounce rate of 49% seems to be common for sites in the top three results.
- Don’t go overboard. That especially applies to the keyword being found in the content and how often it’s found. 18% of top-ranking sites didn’t even include the search keyword on the page, and doing so will just backfire. What’s more important is that the content be relevant to the keyword being used. Otherwise, bounce, bounce, bounce, one page per session!
- Longer matters, but only if the content is strong. Past studies have shown there was a 45% difference in the length of the content on the page between sites ranked first and 20th, respectively. Still, just jamming words into a poorly written page for the sake of increasing its length is pointless and won’t result in happy visitors or search engines.
No one can predict what’s around the corner, but keeping up with SEO techniques that are important will serve you well, regardless of future changes to search ranking algorithms. Building brand awareness, improving user engagement and budgeting for the ongoing development of worthwhile, well-written, fresh and evergreen content is a very good thing. And those activities are not likely to ever become outdated.
We’d love to hear your feedback. What has and hasn’t worked for you in the past? Is it still working today? Did these findings turn your world upside down? Please leave a comment.
Related Topics
- Website Traffic and SEO
- Which Came First: The Keyword or the Content?
- Improving Local SEO for Business
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