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

1. #SMX @MarcusTober
The PeriodicTable Of
SEO Ranking Factors:
2016 Edition
MARCUSTOBER
SMX Advanced, Seattle
June 22nd, 2016

2. #SMX @MarcusTober
Searchmetrics
Made with love in Berlin
More than 220 passionate people
Innovator in SEO Software since 2005

3. #SMX @MarcusTober
MarcusTober
Founder and CTO of
Searchmetrics
In love with SEO and SEARCH
since 2001
Study of computer science
In Berlin, so I´m theTechie!

4. #SMX @MarcusTober
• 1,780,000 results
• Only 10 results
getTraffic
"samsung galaxy s7“ price
Online Excess

5. #SMX @MarcusTober
“Fallout 4 walkthrough”
Online Excess

6. #SMX @MarcusTober
Traditional Ranking Factors…
DEAD
they are…

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If Traditional Ranking Factors disappear…
Is SEO dead too?

8. If SEO is dead...
…better be creative!

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

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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%
𝜌2015 = 0.00
𝜌2016 = 0.00
-20%
Data June 2016

14. 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%
𝜌2015 = −0.03
𝜌2016 = −0.01
-6%
Data June 2016

15. 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%𝜌2015 = 0.02
𝜌2016 = −0.01
+7%
Data June 2016

16. 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
𝜌2016 = 0.01
-10%
Data June 2016

17. 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
𝜌2015 = 0.07
𝜌2016 = 0.05
+21%
Data June 2016

18. 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
𝜌2015 = 0.09
𝜌2016 = 0.09
-16%
Data June 2016l

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

20. #SMX @MarcusTober
Why do
traditional SEO
Ranking Factors
fail?

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

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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
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?

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*NEW Ranking Factors
Data Set
Desktop Mobile
=X Data Points
n

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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

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

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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 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

34. #SMX @MarcusTober
New Ranking Factors 2016

35. Backlinks
primitive...?

36. 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 38728
Correlation: 0.20 0.21 -0.02
Referring Domains RANKING FACTORS
2016
Data Q1/2016
Positive correlation forTop15
backlinks in eCommerce
Negative correlation forTop15
backlinks in finance

37. #SMX @MarcusTober
Will Google destroy the
relevance of backlinks for
rankings in the future?

38. #SMX @MarcusTober
Backlinks & Internal Links
Rank: 5 Rank: 12
17 Referring Domains
21 internal links
52,000 Referring Domains
443 internal links
Example: “Cash advance fresno ca”

39. #SMX @MarcusTober
Rank: 6 Rank: 17
5,685 Referring Domains
No KW inTitle
59,780 Referring Domains
KW inTitle
Backlinks & Keyword in Title
Example: “Fast cash credit card”

40. 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

42. Word Count
Size matters…?

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

44. #SMX @MarcusTober
But…
how to stay
relevant?

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“The content relevance
you must think about…”

46. #SMX @MarcusTober
Content Relevance Factor RANKING FACTORS
2016
*NEW Factor 2016
Landing Page
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XKEYWORDXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXKEYWORDX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Image
Image
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XKEYWORDXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXKEYWORDX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XKEYWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXKEYWORDXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
search query
Relevance of content without keywords to search query
Remove keywords from text
search query = keyword

47. #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
𝜌 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑘𝑡𝑜𝑝 = 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
𝜌 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑘𝑡𝑜𝑝 = 0.09
𝜌 𝑀𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑒 = 0.05
Data Q1/2016
-29%

51. #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
𝜌 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑘𝑡𝑜𝑝 = 0.11
𝜌 𝑀𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑒 = 0.05
Data Q1/2016
-32%

52. #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 ?

54. #SMX @MarcusTober
Technical SEO (Canvas)
Webmaster/You (Artist)
User/Search Intentions (Colors)
Your Skills and Topics (Brushes)
Your Content
(Painting)
Modern SEO Approach

55. #SMX @MarcusTober
Through Content Optimization !
More successful than ever before

56. #SMX @MarcusTober
2009 2013 TODAY
Content Updates – Example thekitchn.com
• More content
• More images
• More content
• More images
• Lists
• 2Videos
Video
Fresh
Content

57. #SMX @MarcusTober
More successful than ever before
Through Content Optimization !
Customer

58. #SMX @MarcusTober
MAY THE SUCCESS
BE WITH YOU!
Download slides:
searchmetrics.com/smx-advanced2016