From the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle, Washington, June 22-23, 2016. SESSION: The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors: 2016 Edition. PRESENTATION: The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors: 2016 Edition - Given by Marcus Tober, @marcustober - Searchmetrics Inc, Founder/CTO. #MarTech #11A
10. #SMX @MarcusTober
1 Keyword = 1 Landing Page
Bad SEO
+ SEO-Checklist
KW in Domain
KW inTitle
KW in H1
Adlinks
300 Words
Links
Etc.
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
11. #SMX @MarcusTober
1Topic = 1 Landing Page
Good SEO
+ Content-Checklist
Content Quality
User Intention
Content Experience
Etc.
✓
✓
✓
✓
12. #SMX @MarcusTober
Ranking Factors
Data Set
Searchmetrics
ResearchCloud
Top search terms
by search volume
Top Google positions
Big Data!
100+
Ranking Factors
Desktop + Mobile
= more than 60M Data points
19. #SMX @MarcusTober
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
21. #SMX @MarcusTober
Google RankBrain
Constantly evolving
More changes
Continuous process
Stronger impact of
“soft” factors
User Signals
Content Relevance
Improved assimilation of:
User Intention <-> SERPs
Deep learning solves
more complex problems
Operates on multiple levels
Individual search results
22. #SMX @MarcusTober
Google does NOT want
the best optimized result
based on some factors…
…but tries to serve the
best result for the user!
23. #SMX @MarcusTober
*NEW Ranking Factors
Data Set
Searchmetrics
ResearchCloud
Top search terms
by search volume
Top Google positions
Deep
Ranking
+
Relevance
Factors
Big Data!
More than just „general“ Ranking Factors
24. #SMX @MarcusTober
*NEW Ranking Factors
Data SetIndustry
Topic/
Search Intention
Topic A
Topic B
Topic C
Topic D
Topic E
Health Finance eCommerce Media Etc.
You?
28. #SMX @MarcusTober
WHY?
Wants to
shop best product
Wants
cheapest offer
Wants
valid information
Because each Industry has to deal with different
SEARCH INTENTIONS
29. #SMX @MarcusTober
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
30. security systemssecurity camera systems
10x ShoppingCart
Keyword: “security camera systems”
E-COMM Introducing Relevance
3x ShoppingCart
+
Google Shopping Integration
4x Vendor
3x Information
(Blog, Reviews etc.)
+
Google News Integration
Transactional Informational
31. #SMX @MarcusTober
Rank: 4 Rank 23
Word count = 2,071 Word count = 1,262
Keyword: “seattle sightseeing”
Introducing RelevanceTRAVEL
32. #SMX @MarcusTober
Content with a high relevance score:
• matches user intention
• Is logically structured and
comprehensive
• Offers a good user experience
• Deals with topics holistically
Being Relevant
Keyword: “seattle sightseeing”
RANK 4
33. #SMX @MarcusTober
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 Relevant
Keyword: “seattle sightseeing”
RANK 23
41. #SMX @MarcusTober
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
43. #SMX @MarcusTober
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 Count
RANKING FACTORS
2016
Data Q1/2016
High correlation, but average word count
differs from industry to industry
54. #SMX @MarcusTober
Technical SEO (Canvas)
Webmaster/You (Artist)
User/Search Intentions (Colors)
Your Skills and Topics (Brushes)
Your Content
(Painting)
Modern SEO Approach
56. #SMX @MarcusTober
2009 2013 TODAY
Content Updates – Example thekitchn.com
• More content
• More images
• More content
• More images
• Lists
• 2Videos
Video
Fresh
Content