SEO ranking factors 2016: the Search­metrics study at a glance

Good SEO content is char­ac­ter­ized by how much it cor­re­sponds to what the user is looking for. However, this differs from search query to search query. The challenge that content marketers face is that they have to answer as many questions as possible with just one text. To achieve this, content is created based on holistic texts that take into account different aspects of a topic and are optimized for different keywords on a se­man­ti­cal­ly related topic. Holistic content therefore aims to achieve good search results for several relevant keywords. The in­di­vid­ual keyword, however, fades into the back­ground. The search metrics study analyzed the content relevance of texts in relation to the search term used. This was carried out on the basis of lin­guis­tic corpora and on the concept of semantic re­la­tion­ships. The result isn’t sur­pris­ing:                 'The URLs with the highest content relevance are those in position 3 to 6' The relevance score decreases con­stant­ly for sub­se­quent search results. Positions 1 and 2 need to be con­sid­ered sep­a­rate­ly in this study. According to Search­metrics, there are generally websites of well-known brands, which benefit from factors such as rec­og­niz­abil­i­ty, user trust, and brand image when it comes to the Google ranking, so their position isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly due to the content being relevant.

The average word count of well-ranking landing pages has been steadily in­creas­ing for years. According to Search­metrics, this reflects a more intensive analysis of the re­spec­tive topic areas in terms of holistic content creation.

                'The average number of words increased by 50 percent in 2016'

Sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences in the word count are shown here with the com­par­i­son of desktop content and mobile landing pages: according to the analysis, desktop versions of a website are on average 30 percent longer than their mobile coun­ter­parts.

This motto is still valid in the world of SEO: the keyword needs to be in the title - and placed as far forward as possible. Whether the search engine agrees with this as­sump­tion is shown by the findings of one of the Search­metrics studies:

                'In 2016 only 45 percent of the top 20 URLs had the keyword in the title'

This de­vel­op­ment can also be explained by the holistic approach of content creation, in which texts are optimized on topics rather than keywords. Google’s AI system is now capable of analyzing semantic re­la­tion­ships without the need for keywords.

Users put a lot of trust into the search engine’s relevance analysis. This was already indicated in the 2014 Search­metrics study when the average click-through rate (CTR) of the analyzed top URLs was de­ter­mined.

Con­se­quent­ly, websites on position 1 receive the most clicks. For pole position, the Search­metrics team cal­cu­lat­ed an average CTR of 44%. The per­cent­age decreases the further down the page the website is. At position 3 the CTR is already down to 29%.

                'The average click-through rate of position 1 to 3 is 36 percent.'

In addition to the CTR, the so-called bounce rate is also taken into account when con­duct­ing a website relevance as­sess­ment. This shows how many users return to Google.com after clicking on a search result without looking at other URLs on the domain they’re visiting.

For the in­ves­ti­gat­ed URLs, the Search­metrics team found an average of 40% increase in the bounce rate for the top 10 positions compared to 2014. There’s a clear deviation between the top two positions.

What’s es­pe­cial­ly important for a relevant as­sess­ment of a website is mainly the time between clicking and leaving the site. We­b­an­a­lyt­ics can ac­cu­rate­ly measure the time a user spends on the website (time on site). Here, Search­metrics provides us with an average value for which there could be different reasons.

                'The time on site for the top 10 URLs is 3 minutes and 43 seconds.'

Comparing the value of the current study with that of 2014, a sig­nif­i­cant increase in the retention time can be seen for the top 10 URLs. This de­vel­op­ment can be at­trib­uted to the fact that website operators have started providing visitors with better quality content since they want to rank well with Google.

Web­mas­ters planning to forego HTTPS transport en­cryp­tion in 2017 will find it hard to improve their position in the search results. Even in September 2016, Google announced that it planned to classify HTTP sites as 'unsafe' from 2017 if sensitive data is processed on them. You don’t have to be an SEO expert to figure out how much this will affect a user’s will­ing­ness to click on a website. Not least for this reason, the number of HTTPS-encrypted websites is growing steadily. While the number of top 10 websites based on HTTPS was still 14% the previous year, Search­metrics was able to record a sig­nif­i­cant increase to 33% in its current study.                 'One third of websites in the top 10 are now based on HTTPS en­cryp­tion.'

The number of backlinks on a website still cor­re­lates somewhat with its placement in the search results. However, link building is fading into the back­ground as a result of new de­vel­op­ments in search engine op­ti­miza­tion. According to Search­metrics, a website’s backlink profile is no longer the decisive factor for im­press­ing Google, but rather one of many.

Today, Google is able to analyze a website’s value through semantic context and direct user signals. The backlink profile as a quality feature has been replaced by content relevance. If there are numerous inbound links from rep­re­sen­ta­tive websites, web­mas­ters need to ask them­selves whether the users’ ex­pec­ta­tions are met by the content these websites offer.

You shouldn’t fear backlinks com­plete­ly dis­ap­pear­ing from the Google algorithm in the future. This was also confirmed by the Search­metrics study. However, backlink-oriented search engine op­ti­miza­tion is now outdated.

  'The cor­re­la­tions for backlinks are still high, but their im­por­tance for the ranking will continue to decrease.'               

The following graphic shows the ranking cor­re­la­tion of general ranking factors for the top 20 URLs analyzed by Search­metrics as well as any other de­vel­op­ments compared to the previous year. Ranking factors, which were collected for the first time in 2016 as well as re­cal­cu­lat­ed factors, have been marked with an asterisk.