SEMrush’s Olga Andrienko outlines the latest trends in SEO ranking and the resulting implications for marketers and advertisers based on new research
What are the latest trends in search engine ranking and what do marketers and advertisers need to consider when planning their SEO strategies? These were two of the areas of focus in the second edition of SEMrush’s 2017 Ranking Factors Study, which aims to provide valuable and current insights on a constantly evolving Internet marketing landscape. This information can be used as a starting point for exercising your further SEO efforts, once you’ve dealt with on-page and technical SEO issues.
The study analyzed 600,000 keywords from SEMrush’s worldwide base, focusing on the top 17 factors and using a machine learning algorithm called Random Forest, to secure unexcelled accuracy compared to correlation analysis.
A key finding of the research was that organic rankings, while being important, should not be the only consideration when planning an SEO strategy. Direct site visits remain the most influential ranking factor. That is, when many users go to a website directly, it’s a good indicator to Google that the domain has high authority and value. These are fueled by brand awareness, so advertisers and marketers take note – building a strong brand image should be an essential part of your promotion strategy. Related to this, user behavior signals such as time on site, pages per session and bounce rate also influence website rankings, since they indicate website quality and relevance for users.
Looking more closely at various competing niches, we found that the high search volume niche is extremely competitive, with top positions occupied by major players with the richest backlink portfolios. Conversely, the competition is lighter in the low-volume SERPs, so extra link-building efforts will make all the difference for the page and domain rankings.
The study also proves that backlink-related factors play an extremely important role in search ranking. Except for factors related to anchor texts, they ranked equal fourth in terms of importance.
So, what do these new insights on the importance of backlinks mean for marketers? As confirmed by Google, a strong backlink portfolio is crucial for website rankings . All the metrics of backlink portfolios are interconnected and a blind manipulation of only one of them will not increase your rankings – unless you also work on the other metrics. That means it’s important to focus on your natural backlink profile and to try various link-building strategies.
Influence of the ranking factors on a specific URL vs a whole domain
The new edition of the study explores the influence of the factors not only on a whole domain but also on a specific URL.This component of our study revealed some interesting and unexpected findings. Although a specific domain can have a fairly low ranking, its individual pages can be ranked highly. On further examination, we determined that branded keywords were the answer. We found that branded keywords will always return more relevant but less popular websites in the first position . When it comes to the rankings of the domain, there will be more relevant but less popular resources in the top of the SERP.
To understand the importance of branded keywords, consider that when a user searches for keywords containing a brand name, the brand domain will appear higher in search results than Wikipedia or other popular resources.
The data also shows that the analyzed ranking factors have more influence on the positions of the single URL than the domain on which it resides. That means that the rankings of a particular page are more sensitive to on-page optimisation, link-building efforts, and other optimisation techniques.
Website security as a ranking factor
This new research also reaffirmed a finding from our earlier report – the growing importance of website security as an SEO factor. In past years, Google promoted the idea of a more secure web. By applying new policies and imposing new rules, Google sent a clear message—make the Internet safer for users. By migrating to HTTPS, you are being proactive in protecting your users’ security, which strengthens the authority of your website. This can be a costly undertaking, but it can have a significant, positive impact on your business.
In our research, we looked at how HTTPS migration affects domain and page rankings. We found that the HTTPS adoption rate is very high in the high-volume keyword group. That is, the more popular the key-words are, the more likely it is that the top positions will be occupied by HTTPS domains. Considering this, it’s reasonable to suggest that if you want to compete for high-volume keywords, having an HTTPS version of your site is extremely important.
We also found that in the low-volume keyword segment, the HTTPS adoption rate is lower, so having a secure version will help you stand out from the competition.
Methodology of the research – why we chose machine learning over correlation analysis
You may be wondering why we chose the Random Forest algorithm over correlation analysis as the basis of for our research, so I’d like to conclude by addressing that point. The Random Forest algorithm is recognized for its unexcelled accuracy. Its first and foremost application is ranking the importance of the multiple variables, so it was an obvious choice for our study. It also ensures that data errors are minimised.
The initial dataset used for our study consists of highly changeable values. For this reason, we didn’t use correlation analysis, which gives reliable results only when examining the relationship between two variables. For example, the impact of the number of backlinks on a search engine results page position, not multiple.