One of the major questions that web developers want to find out is what factors could improve a web page search ranking. Searchmetrics examined examined the 30 top search results for 10,000 keywords, analyzing 300,000 websites. It then published its findings in a downloadable white paper and created an infographic.
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In summary, the results are as follows –
Social Media plays a big part, but mostly from Google +1 shares.
We have known for a while that social media and real-time information plays a large part in your search rankings on search engine results page (SERP). It is important to maintain and manage your social media assets if you want to maintain and improve your search rankings.
Backlinks remain an important factor
As you can tell from the infographic, the number of backlinks is key to your search rankings. The study found that the “most natural link profile” with the appropriate keywords improves the ranking tremendously.
Technical factors decreases in importance
Surprisingly, technical factors like length of URL and position keywords in title or URL has decreased in importance. Nevertheless, technical issues matter to allow proper indexing. However, the over-emphasis of technical factors are no longer key.
Content in NOT king.
For years, we have been hearing how content is king, and how content marketing is the Next Big Thing. Apparently, based on this study, this is not so. It is true that quality content remains important, but it doesn’t live up to the hype that marketeers have been touting.