Searchmetrics recently launched their top SEO ranking factors for 2013 supported by this great infographic. For those of you who produce branded content on a regular basis, it’s helpful to see what’s working and what’s not in the post-Penguin 2.0 world of SEO. We’ve taken this study and boiled it down to 6 easily digestible (and tweetable) facts! (Thanks to Sarah Evans for giving me this idea a few years back!)
The study revealed:
1. Compared to 2012, The importance of keywords in the URL / domain has significantly decreased as a ranking factor (Tweet this fact)
2. Brands get a hall pass when it comes to many of the SEO rules that apply to other websites (Tweet this fact)
3. Social sharing is still important as well positioned URLs have a high number of likes, shares, tweets and plus ones (Tweet this fact)
4. Good ranking URLs…have more text and a higher number of additional media integrations compared with 2012 (Tweet this fact)
5. Backlinks continue to be one of the most important SEO metrics. (Tweet this fact)
6. On-page factors – such as site speed – do more harm than good when it comes to page ranking (Tweet this fact)
Our conclusion: With Penguin 2.0, Google continues to practice what they preach by rewarding quality over quantity when it comes to branded content.
What did you take away from the study?
