More than 250,000 URLs appearing in the top search result positions have been examined for the presence and extent of specific properties. The results align with how these factors correlate with Google rankings. In 2014, there are several new features on the analysis of average values in comparison to the respective correlation.
The results yielded a need for greater emphasis on high quality, relevant content, technological features, backlinks and social signals. For the first time, we have analyzed the most important user signals as well.
Here are some key points:
- Content: High quality, relevant content ranks better on average, and is identifiable by properties such as comprehensive wording in regard to the co-occurrence of related terms in the context, a higher word-count and media enrichment.
- Technology: A well optimized technical performance of a page contributes to a good ranking, such as, robust site architecture with an optimal internal linking structure, short loading times and presence of meta tags.
- Backlinks: The quantity and quality of backlinks remains crucial as there are many new features introduced this year that have been revised to improve the quality of the results.
- Social Signals: The correlation values regarding coefficients out of the social sector have slightly decreased. The growth of the average total number of signals per position was rather small.
- User Signals: For the first time, user signals were measured and as expected there is a relation between rankings and higher click-through rates, lower bounce rates and a high time-on-site.
Take a look at the infographic below to sum up the findings and make the information graspable. You will find some useful SEO survival tips and fun facts too.
