#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

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

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!

#SMX @MarcusTober

1 Keyword = 1 Landing Page

Bad SEO

+ SEO-Checklist

KW in Domain

KW in Title

KW in H1

Adlinks

300 Words

Links

Etc.

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#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

#SMX @MarcusTober

Why do

traditional SEO

Ranking Factors

fail?

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#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?

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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

#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

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

#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 RelevantKeyword: “seattle sightseeing”

RANK 23

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#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

Word Count

Size matters…?

#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 CountRANKING FACTORS

2016

Data Q1/2016

High correlation, but average word count differs from industry to industry

#SMX @MarcusTober

But…

how to stay

relevant?

#SMX @MarcusTober

“The content relevance

you must think about…”

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

#2

Mobile Customer Journey

#SMX @MarcusTober

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%

#SMX @MarcusTober

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%

#SMX @MarcusTober

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 ?

#SMX @MarcusTober

Technical SEO (Canvas)

Webmaster/You (Artist)

User/Search Intentions (Colors)

Your Skills and Topics (Brushes)

Your Content

(Painting)

Modern SEO Approach

#SMX @MarcusTober

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

#SMX @MarcusTober

MAY THE SUCCESS

BE WITH YOU!

Download slides:

searchmetrics.com/smx-advanced2016