A recent research lists down most influential ranking factors and also provides factual pointers that answer the above question.
SEMrush, one of the most popular SEO tool set company just published their study on Google ranking factors, which they believe matters most to rank well on Google. Though traditional SEO agencies across the globe find it hard to digest, we at JumpUpper stand vindicated for what we have been vouching for long. To let our readers know, the sample size of the entire research constituted of 600,000 keywords from worldwide, primarily from the USA and leading European countries and first 100 SERP positions for each of them. With that big sample size, the top five key influencers for a website’s ranking, traffic and engagement were observed to be:-
– Direct Website visits
– Time spent on website
– Pages per session
– Bounce rate
– Total referring domains
‘Total backlinks’ pointing to a particular website was a close sixth. If we also take that into consideration, it can safely be said – more than technical and on-page SEO, it’s the content on and off the website that plays the key role. Social proofing as illustrated through referring domains implies it is almost essential that there should be more platforms, avenues, forums that should be speaking well about a website to earn more letters of recommendations i.e. total referring domains. Obviously, if the content on a website is engaging and relevant, it leads to increase in pages per session and inflicts a decline in bounce rate which eventually means that time on site increases.
Well, the research findings couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. We have always been pushing across the point that a content-driven, engagement-centric organic campaign always brings in results that are there to stay. The results could be in terms of – ranking, traffic, authority, interaction and appreciation among the users. Whenever we share recommendations to online businesses that come to us for advice, the ample consideration is always given to content consumption preferences of the target audience. With that being the nucleus of strategy, we have fetched higher rankings, quality traffic and social appreciation that last with time, more often than not.
Content has been and will remain the king. With this recent research, it has been proved beyond the point that strategic content curation, distribution and consumption actually takes the form of a God without whose blessing all technical SEO rhetoric counts for nothing. We at JumpUpper have been doing it for a while now. We shall be equally glad to share some suggestions with you. Please do write to us at [email protected] to receive some non-obligatory content marketing recommendations for your business/services.