Google Ranking Factors Study by Semrush
Today I have a useful infographic produced by Semrush which attempts to show specific factors correlate with search engine rankings. To do this, they have calculated a correlation score for each factor by analysing 16,298 English keywords with more than 100 monthly searches.
The Google ranking factors in the design are broken down into categories including on-SERP factors, URL and domain factors, backlink factors, user signals, content factors and user experience factors and you can tell which is which by using the colour code at the top.
Check out ranking factors data here and click on the image to enlarge it:
Here are my thoughts on some of the top ranking factors in the study:
Text relevance – I am not surprised that this is the top one. After all, if the relevant text isn’t on the page, then you ain’t gonna come up for it.
URL’s organic traffic – Again, this makes sense. Websites that are already getting a good amount of traffic from Google do tend to rank higher.
Domain occurrences of star ratings – Ratings on Google local and the top business directories can definitely impact your local rankings and would still be helpful even if SEO didn’t exist.
Domain authority score – Domain authority is still very important, but it is not the be all and end all. I have seen websites with virtually no backlinks beat high authority sites lots of times.
Page authority score – Getting quality links to a blog post, article or whatever can really get it ranking very well and pulling in lots of organic traffic.
Content quality score – Of course, the quality of your content is important for ranking well. In depth and well written content has a much better shot at ranking high.
Domain occurrences in featured snippets – I love it when a client gets a featured snippet for a blog post or piece of content – That is when you know that you are doing a good job and I would imagine that sites that have a lot of them will perform better.
Domain’s age – This one has always been an important factor. Brand-new websites have a lot less chance of ranking for competitive keywords than well-established ones.
All in all, a great study and handy resource. I hope that you find it helpful and please go ahead and share it on social media.