De gekende SEO-tool Searchmetrics spamde m’n mailbox met een whitepaper van SEO factoren voor 2017. Altijd interessant om te lezen hoe zij de zoekmachines zien veranderen. Dus maakt ik alvast een samenvatting van de kernelementen, zowel voor mezelf als collega’s in sector van online marketing.
Ranking factors
Universally applicable ranking factors are a thing of the past. This is due to the development and application of Machine Learning algorithms.
User Intent
The main task for SEOs and online marketers today is the creation of relevant content that is targeted towards the specific user intention. The most relevant content ultimately depends on the user’s intent and what people are looking for.
Technical
Technical factors remain a prerequisite for good rankings. Factors such as loading time, file size, HTTPS encryption (for shops), internal links, page architecture and mobile-friendliness are elementary pieces of this puzzle. In general: perfect technical implementation lays the foundation for breaking into the top 20.
Signals
User signals give Google direct feedback on how satisfied people are with content. Google has access to a gigantic quantity of data, and can use its extensive range of products for highly effective measurement and evaluation of these signals. For example: user behaviour on the search results page (Click rate, bounce rate, any further clicks etc.), Google Chrome Browser, Google Analytics, Android, AdWords, AdSense, Product Listing Ads, etc. This data provides Google with highly efficient measurements, enabling it to gauge how happy a user is with a result.
Links
Backlinks do remain a part of the algorithm, but they are now just one of many uting [sic] factors and no longer the driving force pushing webpages to the top of Google’s rankings.
Real-time
The evaluation of a website’s relevance is now based on the complex interplay of hundreds of factors, each of which is assigned its own flexible weighting. And this all happens in real time.