On The Brink: Changes In SEO Ranking Factors

This is the first installment of our newest Delucchi Plus blog feature, On The Brink, in which our Senior Search Marketing Specialist and resident Batman expert Jonathan Brinksman breaks down the latest and greatest trends in digital marketing. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or total newbie, Jonathan will be offering expert, accessible insight into the ever-changing digital world.

A couple of weeks ago, a company called SearchMetrics released a study on the top SEO ranking factors. For an SEO nerd like me, this is everything that I want. It’s raw, unbridled data: If you want your website to rank organically, this is the next best thing to a literal roadmap. Well, a figurative roadmap. It’s literally the next best thing to a figurative roadmap. Actually, maybe it’s just a figurative roadmap itself. I don’t know, what do you think? Anyway.

The point is, this is a really great study and you should look at it. Not everyone can be a hotshot digital marketer, though. *Dusts off shoulder* So, I guess it’s up to me to break it down for you.

What am I looking at, exactly?

This is a breakdown of basically everything that goes into getting any one of your website’s pages to appear in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo) are laid out for you and ranked in order of importance. I know, my jaw hit the floor too.

What is it saying?

Essentially, it’s saying that content is king. Consistently, the most important factors have to do with content that support relevant search queries. Basically, it means that wherever you have content (Copy, Header Tags, Images, etc), you should be thinking about what searches you want that content to appear for.

Backlinks look important. I want backlinks.

Slow down there, friend. Gone are the days of cold-calling webmasters and asking to trade links. Google is wise to that game. An earned link, or earned impression, is so much more valuable. If you want an effective link-building strategy, you have to put out content – both on your website and on your social channels – that people can link to; something that engages with your audience/potential consumers. SPOILER ALERT: for many, many business models, this is incredibly hard to do. This is where working with an agency that knows their stuff about messaging becomes paramount.

Google+ is pretty high up this list, huh?

Sadly, yes. Google+ is “more important” for SEO than for Facebook or Twitter. Or is it? Most people neglect their Google+ messaging primarily because nobody uses Google+. Sound logic. You need to be where your audience is if you actually want to interact with them. Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram are probably much better bets if your goal is user engagement. However, think about it: Google gets to look at every single ounce of data from Google+. Of course it means more to them. Whether you like it or not, Google+ should be a part of your messaging strategy.

What does this all mean?

Beyond the few highlights I’ve listed above, it means that SEO is super complicated. No longer can you rely on throwing keywords onto a website and hoping for the best. Solid keyword research and updated title tags and meta descriptions are great, but they’re utterly useless if the content and copy of the pages of the site aren’t married to an overall online strategy.

What can I do?

You’re currently reading this on the blog of a full service agency, so of course I’m going to recommend working with a full service agency. More than the shameless plug, though, you can’t think of the content on your website and the content on your other channels as separate any longer. In SEO, content is king, and until Queen Regent Google decrees otherwise, we’d all better take a step back and make sure that you’re saying not just what we want to say, but (most importantly) what your audience is looking for. Hardly rocket science.