the periodic table of seo ranking factors: 2016 edition by marcus tober
TRANSCRIPT
#SMX @MarcusTober
The Periodic Table Of
SEO Ranking Factors:
2016 Edition
MARCUS TOBER
SMX Advanced, Seattle
June 22nd, 2016
#SMX @MarcusTober
Searchmetrics
Made with love in Berlin
More than 220 passionate people
Innovator in SEO Software since 2005
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Marcus Tober
Founder and CTO ofSearchmetrics
In love with SEO and SEARCHsince 2001
Study of computer scienceIn Berlin, so I´m the Techie!
#SMX @MarcusTober
• 1,780,000 results
• Only 10 results
get Traffic
"samsung galaxy s7“ price
Online Excess
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“Fallout 4 walkthrough”
Online Excess
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Traditional Ranking Factors…
DEAD
they are…
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If Traditional Ranking Factors disappear…
Is SEO dead too?
If SEO is dead...
…better be creative!
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1 Keyword = 1 Landing Page
Bad SEO
+ SEO-Checklist
KW in Domain
KW in Title
KW in H1
Adlinks
300 Words
Links
Etc.
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
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1 Topic = 1 Landing Page
Good SEO
+ Content-ChecklistContent Quality
User Intention
Content Experience
Etc.
✓
✓
✓
✓
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Ranking Factors
Data Set
Searchmetrics Research Cloud
Top search termsby search volume
Top Google positions
Big Data!
100+ Ranking Factors
Desktop + Mobile= more than 60M Data points
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50%
55%
60%
65%
70%
75%
80%
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop 2016 Desktop 2015
Keyword in Title RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 2016: 55%
Ø Top10 2015 : 75%
𝜌 2015 = 0.00
𝜌 2016 = 0.00
-20%
Data June 2016
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
20%
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop 2016 Desktop 2015
Adlinks RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 2016: 4%
Ø Top10 2015 : 10%
𝜌 2015 = −0.03
𝜌 2016 = −0.01-6%
Data June 2016
50%
55%
60%
65%
70%
75%
80%
85%
90%
95%
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop 2016 Desktop 2015
Has H1 RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 2016: 87%
Ø Top10 2015 : 80%𝜌 2015 = 0.02
𝜌 2016 = −0.01
+7%
Data June 2016
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
55%
60%
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop 2016 Desktop 2015
Keyword in H1 RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 2016: 38%
Ø Top10 2015 : 48%
𝜌2015 = −0.02
𝜌 2016 = 0.01
-10%
Data June 2016
500
1.000
1.500
2.000
2.500
3.000
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop 2016 Desktop 2015
Word Count RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 2016: 1,633
Ø Top10 2015 : 1,285
𝜌 2015 = 0.07
𝜌 2016 = 0.05
+21%
Data June 2016
50
70
90
110
130
150
170
190
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop 2016 Desktop 2015
Internal Link Count RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 2016: 126
Ø Top10 2015 : 150
𝜌 2015 = 0.09
𝜌 2016 = 0.09
-16%
Data June 2016l
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Why SEO is not dead
Startpoint of Purchases
Source: Forrester/ Internet Retailer B2B Buying And Selling Online Survey 2014
92% of Business Purchases
start with Search
81% of Shoppers Research Online before buying
Source: Adweek/ +GE Capital Retail Bank’s Major Purchase Shopper Study 2015
B2B B2C
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Why do
traditional SEO
Ranking Factors
fail?
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Google RankBra in
Constantly evolving More changes Continuous process
Stronger impact of“soft” factors User Signals Content Relevance
Improved assimilation of:
User Intention <-> SERPs
Deep learning solvesmore complex problems Operates on multiple levels
Individual search results
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Google does NOT want the best optimized result based on some factors…
…but tries to serve the best result for the user!
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*NEW Ranking Factors
Data Set
Searchmetrics Research Cloud
Top search termsby search volume
Top Google positions
DeepRanking
+ Relevance
Factors
Big Data!
More than just „general“ Ranking Factors
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*NEW Ranking Factors
Data SetIndustry
Topic/Search Intention
Topic A
Topic B
Topic C
Topic D
Topic E
Health Finance eCommerce Media Etc.
You?
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*NEW Ranking Factors
Data Set
Desktop Mobile
=X Data Pointsn
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#1
Different industries,
different Ranking Factors
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Analysing
industry by industry.
With data-driven insights.
FinanceE-Commerce Health
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WHY?
Wants to
shop best product
Wants
cheapest offer
Wants
valid information
Because each Industry has to deal with different
SEARCH INTENTIONS
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security camera systems
10 out of top 10
e-commerce websites for this
keyword have an
„add to cart“ function
above the fold
Keyword: “security camera systems”
E-COMM Introducing Relevance
security systemssecurity camera systems
10x Shopping Cart
Keyword: “security camera systems”
E-COMM Introducing Relevance
3x Shopping Cart
+
Google Shopping Integration
4x Vendor
3x Information
(Blog, Reviews etc.)
+
Google News Integration
Transactional Informational
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Rank: 4 Rank 23
Word count = 2,071 Word count = 1,262
Keyword: “seattle sightseeing”
Introducing RelevanceTRAVEL
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Content with a high relevance score:
• matches user intention
• Is logically structured and
comprehensive
• Offers a good user experience
• Deals with topics holistically
Being RelevantKeyword: “seattle sightseeing”
RANK 4
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Content with a low relevance score:
• Doesn‘t match user intention
• Isn‘t comprehensive
• Doesn‘t deal with topics
holistically
• Doesn‘t rank for many related
Keywords
Being RelevantKeyword: “seattle sightseeing”
RANK 23
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New Ranking Factors 2016
Backlinks
primitive...?
0
50.000
100.000
150.000
200.000
250.000
300.000
350.000
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29
eCommerce Health Finance
T10 Ø: 272736 99526 38728Correlation: 0.20 0.21 -0.02
Referring Domains RANKING FACTORS
2016
Data Q1/2016
Positive correlation forTop15 backlinks in eCommerce
Negative correlation for Top15 backlinks in finance
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Will Google destroy the
relevance of backlinks for
rankings in the future?
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Backlinks & Internal Links
Rank: 5 Rank: 12
17 Referring Domains21 internal links
52,000 Referring Domains443 internal links
Example: “Cash advance fresno ca”
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Rank: 6 Rank: 17
5,685 Referring DomainsNo KW in Title
59,780 Referring DomainsKW in Title
Backlinks & Keyword in Title
Example: “Fast cash credit card”
Keyword in Title
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0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29
eCommerce Health Finance
Keyword in Title
T10 Ø: 33% 35% 10% Correlation: -0.04 -0.05 0.04
RANKING FACTORS
2016
Finance: Only in 10% of the cases the keyword is in the title
Data Q1/2016
Word Count
Size matters…?
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1.000
1.500
2.000
2.500
3.000
3.500
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29
eCommerce Health Finance
T10 Ø: 3069 2826 1575 Correlation: 0.13 0.15 0.09
Word CountRANKING FACTORS
2016
Data Q1/2016
High correlation, but average word count differs from industry to industry
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But…
how to stay
relevant?
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“The content relevance
you must think about…”
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Content Relevance Factor RANKING FACTORS
2016*NEW Factor 2016
Landing Page
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Image
Image
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
search query
Relevance of content without keywords to search query
Remove keywords from text
search query = keyword
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0,1
0,11
0,12
0,13
0,14
0,15
0,16
0,17
0,18
0,19
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop
Content Relevance Factor RANKING FACTORS
2016
𝜌𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑘𝑡𝑜𝑝 = 0.04
Data June 2016
*NEW Factor 2016
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#2
Mobile Customer Journey
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Mp3 Download
Desktop vs Mobile: App Integrations
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60
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop Mobile
Ø Top10 Desktop: 117
Ø Top10 Mobile : 83
Internal link count RANKING FACTORS
2016
𝜌𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑘𝑡𝑜𝑝 = 0.09
𝜌𝑀𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑒 = 0.05
Data Q1/2016
-29%
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1.500
1.700
1.900
2.100
2.300
2.500
2.700
2.900
3.100
3.300
3.500
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19
Desktop Mobile
Word count RANKING FACTORS
2016
Ø Top10 Desktop: 2926
Ø Top10 Mobile : 2005
𝜌𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑘𝑡𝑜𝑝 = 0.11
𝜌𝑀𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑒 = 0.05
Data Q1/2016
-32%
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Content Relevance:The future of the ranking factors, search strategy and Google has
begun.
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?
But…Market is still not educated enough
SEO is dead !
Ranking Factors ?
Keywords ?
Relevance ?
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Technical SEO (Canvas)
Webmaster/You (Artist)
User/Search Intentions (Colors)
Your Skills and Topics (Brushes)
Your Content
(Painting)
Modern SEO Approach
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Through Content Optimization !
More successful than ever before
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2009 2013 TODAY
Content Updates – Example thekitchn.com
• More content
• More images
• More content
• More images
• Lists
• 2 Videos
Video
FreshContent
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More successful than ever before
Through Content Optimization !
Customer
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MAY THE SUCCESS
BE WITH YOU!
Download slides:
searchmetrics.com/smx-advanced2016