Posted on July 3, 2017 by admin
6 Top Ranking Factors in 2017
Halfway through 2017, so much has already happened in the dynamic and ever-evolving field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
From ‘Intrusive Interstitial Penalty’ to unconfirmed major updates along with various minor changes in algorithms, the updates in the first quarter of 2017 had the major impact on the ranking of the websites. The ranking of the websites fluctuated with major and minor updates, and as SEO specialists, the importance of keeping up with Google updates cannot be more emphasized.
Whether you run a New York SEO Company or are the local SEO specialists in Melbourne, the Google updates and ranking factors are game changers in the digital world. The sooner you acquaint yourself with the ranking factors, the sooner you are on the right track to achieve your goals.
Based on the SEMrush’s data driven research study on the ranking factors, here are some of the factors that you should be looking out in 2017.
1. Website Traffic
On the scale of importance, the website traffic has a prominent position. Website traffic makes a significant difference in the ranking. The websites that receive higher visits are placed higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
One reason for the high traffic volume is more visibility of the top-ranking website. However, this is not it! Drawing higher traffic volume can help the website to climb in the search rankings. It also indicates that the click-through rate of the site is a high-impact factor.
The SEO experts should work on crafting meta-descriptions that prompt the visitor to click on the website. So, to whom it may concern, 2017 is still a year of meta descriptions.
2. Inbound Link
From the begging of SEO days, the inbound links can make or break the SEO strategy. However, there are still SEO experts that shy away from inbound links.
SEMRush’s data analysts notice a difference of 10,000 inbound links in websites on 1st and 10th position. Google uses inbound links to understand and analyze the authority of the website, and thus, the inbound links are an integral factor in ranking. Even though this number only depicts the difference in the quantity of the links; the research also backs up the importance of the quality of back links.
If you are an SEO specialist that did not consider link building worth the effort in the past, it is time to change the perception in 2017. It is time to start investing in quality links to rank higher in the search engine.
3. Length of the Content
Relying on the old, but still relevant phrase ‘content is the king,’ the recent study indicates something similar. The longer content is not always, the better, but a longer content that is also better is favored in search ranking.
The website on 1st position tends to have 45% more content than the website on 20th position. It means that if a top-ranking website has 1500 words, the website on the 20th position will have around 1000 words.
If you are thinking how the content makes a difference, there can be several reasons for it. More content means more words to crawl, more content to read and, more information to include, and these are a contributing factor to a good ranking website.
With strong data-backed study, it is almost convincing that the content marketers and SEOs should aim for longer and better quality content.
4. Keyword Matching Obsession
For the content marketers who struggle with long-tail keywords and their grammar-defying awkward sentencing, the good news is that 18% of the top-ranking website for high-volume the keywords did not have the exact matching keyword in the body.
The importance of exact-matching keywords is already a debated issue. The high keyword density and the exact-matching keywords are considered beneficial by some SEOs while the others believe them to be risky.
According to the study, the long-tail keywords were even less present in the content of the highest-ranking websites. What does this mean?
This means that as SEO specialist and content marketers, you should be fewer worries about including the exact matching keywords and more worried about the quality of the content. You can still use keywords in the right density and must adopt a middle way as there is no proof that including exact-match keywords hurt the ranking.
5. User Experience Across Multiple Dimensions
There is no debate about the fact that Google likes the websites that users admire. The user experience may be a subjective metric, but it is one of the single most important determinants of the website ranking. Everything from website’s click-through rate, quality of content, to navigation hierarchy points towards its user-experience, and these together make up a high-ranking website.
Except for the first factor of website visit, the following three factors in the study indicate the website’s user experience. The time spent on the website is an indicator of the user-experience, if the users find the content interesting, they will spend more time on the website, and that website will be ranked higher in the search engine.
Same is the case with bounce rate. The websites that rank on the first 3 positions have an average bounce rate of 49% and it also studied that 3-3.5 pages are visited per one session.
A positive customer experience guarantees more repeat visitors, increasing the traffic to the website. Google collects data about customer experience of the website through analyzing bounce rate, pages per visits, and time spent on each page and when all of these indicators reflect a website with seamless customer experience, Google ranks it above the low-scoring competitor websites.
6. Website Security (HTTPS)
The secure websites are not just trusted by users but are also liked by Google. 65% of the websites that rank high for high volume keywords are registered on https domain rather than HTTP. The website security is also an important ranking factor in 2017.
Whether you are a local SEO New York company or an international player, designing, building, and optimizing secure websites is important for overall ranking.
Final Words
Thanks to SEMrush, the SEO specialists have a reliable, data-driven study to back up their SEO strategies and course of action. The ranking factors have changed in the past, and only people at Google know what will happen by the end of 2017, but the top 6 ranking factors make up the core of a good ranking website.
The factors like length of the content and its quality, user experience and link building are not simply new, but their overall strategy and importance has changed over the time.
So, it is time to update and realign the SEO strategy based on brand new information from SEMrush.