Top SEO Ranking Factors in 2017: SEMrush Ranking Factors 2.0 Update: SEMrush 2017 Study With Unreleased Updates. From the SMX East Conference in New York City,Oct 24-26, 2017. SESSION: SEO Ranking Factors In 2017 updates: What's Important, What's Not. PRESENTATION: SEMrush Ranking Factors 2.0: SEMrush 2017 Study With Unreleased Updates

1. #SMX #11A @semrush
SEMrush 2017 study with unreleased updates
SEMrush
Ranking
Factors 2.0

2. #SMX #11A @semrush
June 2017

3. #SMX #11A @semrush
Biggest scope
of data EVER
taken for such
study
On-page
factors
Traffic
data
Referring
domains
Top 100 positions for 600,000
keywords (200,000 from Google US)

4. #SMX #11A @semrush10
Keywords are grouped
by search volume as
the competition level
per group is different.
Keyword
grouping

5. #SMX #11A @semrush
Search
Volume
Groups
VERY HIGH
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
10,001 and up
1,001 – 10,000
101 – 1,000
1 - 100

6. #SMX #11A @semrush
KEY TAKEAWAYS
RANKING FACTORSTHAT MATTER
ANDTHE ONESTHAT DON’T

7. #SMX #11A @semrush
Website Security (HTTPS)

8. #SMX #11A @semrush
Website security (HTTPS)
65% of domains
inTOP-3 for
high volume
keywords are
already secure

9. #SMX #11A @semrush
MOVE TO HTTPS. EVEN IF IT’S NOT A
MASSIVE FACTOR, IT WILL HELP WITH
CONVERSIONS & BUILD TRUST.

10. #SMX #11A @semrush
Content Length

11. #SMX #11A @semrush
Content length
Content length
withinTOP-3 is
45% longer than
content length for
20th position in
ALL search volume
groups

12. #SMX #11A @semrush
Content for long-tail keywords is 20% longer than for
short-head
Pages ranking for
short head and
long tail keywords
are NOT the same
ones.

13. #SMX #11A @semrush
MAKE SURE YOUR CONTENT LENGTH IS
SUFFICIENT. MAKE SURE IT’S RELEVANT
AND MATCHES USER INTENT.

14. #SMX #11A @semrush
CHECK YOUR COMPETITION AND
MAKE SURE THEY DON’T OUTPERFORM
IN TERMS OF LENGTH / AMOUNT OF
WORDS – BUT KEEP IT RELEVANT.

15. #SMX #11A @semrush
Keywords

16. #SMX #11A @semrush
Keyword in title
35% of domains
ranking for high
volume keywords
don’t have the
keyword in title

17. #SMX #11A @semrush
Keyword in anchor
Keyword existence
in the anchor
doesn’t have any
significant
importance for
rankings. Even for
high volume group
only 8% of link
anchors include
the keyword.

18. #SMX #11A @semrush
Website traffic

19. #SMX #11A @semrush
Total website visits
Number of visits
matters for high
volume keywords.
For lower volume
keyword the
impact is
insignificant.

20. #SMX #11A @semrush
Graph
changes only
when we
excluded
direct traffic
Search traffic has no
significant impact on rankings.

21. #SMX #11A @semrush
User signals

22. #SMX #11A @semrush
Bounce rate increases after TOP-3
Possible reasons:
content is less
relevant, site loads
slower, there is
more trust
towards the
domains on first
positions

23. #SMX #11A @semrush
CHECK PAGES WITH HIGHER BOUNCE
RATE AND KEYWORDS THESE PAGES
RANK FOR. MAKE THE CONTENT MORE
RELEVANT TO REDUCE THE BOUNCE RATE.

24. #SMX #11A @semrush
Pages per session
Visitors coming to
the website from
search visit 3 – 3.5
pages per one
session.

25. #SMX #11A @semrush
USER SIGNALS MIGHT BE TOO NOISY FOR
GOOGLE, BUT THEY INDICATE THAT
USERS ARE NOT ENGAGING WITH YOUR
SITE AS THEY SHOULD BE!

26. #SMX #11A @semrush
Referring domains

27. #SMX #11A @semrush
Number of referring domains
The 1st position
has almost twice
as much referring
domains as pages
on 10th position
(~10K difference)

28. #SMX #11A @semrush
BACKLINKS STILL MATTER FOR SEO.
PROPER HIGH QUALITY LINK BUILDING
WILL HELP YOU RANK HIGHER FOR
KEYWORDS WITH VOLUME OF LESS
THAN 10,000 QUERIES

29. #SMX #11A @semrush
Follow backlinks
Graphs for the
number of follow-
backlinks, the total
number of
backlinks and
referring domains
have identical
patterns.

30. #SMX #11A @semrush
Research at a
glance
Backlinks still matter for SEO,
especially for keywords with
<10K volume
User behavior signals
impact your rankings
Keywords in tags have
become less significant

31. #SMX #11A @semrush
WHAT FACTOR IS MOST IMPORTANT?
New approach

32. #SMX #11A @semrush
Forget about correlation!
CORRELATION
VS.
IMPORTANCE

33. #SMX #11A @semrush
Let’s get nerdy: A little bit about Random Forest
The Pairwise
Approach:
Compared factors for
each two URLs
Random Forest: 2/3 of
data is randomly
distributed to grow
millions of decision trees
Random Forest: 1/3 of
data is used for voting
and estimating attribute
(factors) importance
All factors are analyzed at the same time!

34. #SMX #11A @semrush
Importance of 17 factors
How Google
differentiates who
to rank among
websites that did
on-page SEO right

35. #SMX #11A @semrush
THANK YOU & SEE YOU AT THE NEXT #SMX
Stay tuned for the updates! -> semrush.com/ranking-factors
OLGA ANDRIENKO
HEAD OF GLOBAL MARKETING
@OLGANDRIENKO
O.ANDRIENKO@SEMRUSH.COM