In 2014 SearchMetrics company conducted an interesting research, having analyzed the factors influencing Google ranking. Around 300 thousand URL’s, appearing in TOP of Google search results, were taken into consideration here. All these factors were shown in a graph with Spearman correlation parameter, being also divided into 5 groups: behavior factors, social signals, links, technical characteristics and content. The very rating is shown below:
As you can see, the click-through rate holds the first place among all the analyzed factors. Relevant terms occupy the second honorable place. Despite the fact, that social signals positions have weakened insignificantly, compared to previous year results, the signals from Google, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter go next. But some cultural differences should be taken into consideration here. For example, CIS countries and China have other top-social networks, thus Pinterest and Twitter are not so popular among users. So, in this region, these social networks do not play a very important role for Google ranking.
The study also shows, that backlinks amount and quality is still very actual. Another important factor is keywords presence in all kinds of content (in Title, Description, external and internal links, Body, H2, in the domain name and URL). Such characteristics, as URL length, word count in anchor texts, HTML structure, text characters number also influence site ranking. Moreover, one should not forget about the high quality content, which is also significant for SEO ranking.
Besides, important factors, which influence the website’s ranking in Google, are the users’ signals, particularly the time they spent on the website and the bounce rate. So the website’s usability should also be considered carefully to ensure the positive impact of mentioned factors on Google ranking.
According to the research, too much advertising on the website, especially Google AdSense, has a very negative impact on site rank. But the most surprising was the fact, that the keyword in H1 is seen among the factors, which have no influence on Google ranking. However, taking into account our experience, we cannot agree with that and can claim that H1 is still very important.
So, to conclude, we should say that the on-page optimization is not the most essential factor for Google ranking today. But one should consider a very important thing. If on-page optimization does not correspond to the required level, page ranking will be substantially degraded. And finally, speaking about the most effective methods of site promotion, one should always remember about SMM. One should also remember, that complex usage of all mentioned ranking factors would increase your website’s positions among the search results.
And finally, let’s remember, what factors influenced the website’s ranking in previous, 2013, year: