Infographic SEO Ranking-Factors 2014 – Google.com | Searchmetrics.

Searchmetrics just released a fantastic, totally free, Info-Graphics and report on “SEO Ranking Factors 2014 – Google”

Here is a summary I just got in email from Dan Brown, Editor of Newswrire.net a Press release service that I use.

Get the get a free copy of the full study for yourself: http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/knowledge-base/ranking-factors/ (Neither Doug or I are affiliates)

Click-Through Rate’s Importance is Literally Off-the-Chart

Remember only 50 characters of your headline, and 140 characters for your abstract (description) get displayed on the Search engine Results so use them well. Having a compelling headline and short description is the one thing that can get clicks.

See related at http://newswire.net/pages/newgooglerankingsignal

Build Long Pages, Over 975 Words

“We used to be able to rank short, keyword-targeted pages all day long, Google has drastically adjusted what they consider “great content.” It’s now more important than ever that you include a bunch of topically related information and keywords in your content.”

Ok this is controversial one!.. The hot ticket today is building Silos and that calls for splitting up yr articles into related pieces. This is working very well on search, but the point is that it must be support with deep content somewhere along the line. Not very long ago Matt Cutts commented that its not necessary to have every page on your website be long and in depth. Its nonsense to write 1000 words for every room type for example and its normal to have room types and other such pages as stand along content. Balance is needed.

The email continues “You want your article to be a holistic representation of the keyword and the entire topic that surrounds it (think Wikipedia) rather than just being about the particular keyword itself. This goes hand in hand with the fact that the average word count of a high-ranking page is up to 975 (and that’s the average!)”

Agree – Its certainly advisable to have at lease 4 related words in your page, never just one. But the in depth information on the related items can be a separate page. It too will have 4 more related words. That is what the silo structure is all about.

“So if you have a bunch of shorter articles that are each built around a single keyword (the way we used to do it, in little interlinked silos), then you’d likely be better off combining all those articles into a few mega-pages that encompass the entire topic. Those pages can rank for multiple keywords so long as you have your Titles, H2’s and Meta Descriptions done properly. Think about it this way… Google is absolutely in love with ranking Wikipedia pages, so why wouldn’t you style your content similarly to how they do it? They put everything related to one topic on a single, often very long page.”

As I said above, its all about balance and it depends what you are doing. Articles are one thing, webpages about your hotel is another. I interpret this need for deep knowledge and long pages to mean that some pages should be long and all pages have to have merit. But where it makes sense to have seperate pages that is ok too, even if they are under 900 words. 900 is the average

Raw Number of Backlinks is Still the #1 Off-Page Factor

“Searchmetrics shows, without a doubt, that higher-ranking pages have MORE links than their competitors across the board. Bulk link building is not going anywhere… and if you’re trying to rank a page that sits on an authority domain (Amazon, Youtube etc.) it’s still practically the Wild West in terms of what automated backlinks can accomplish.”

Vary Your Backlinks As Much As Possible

There are a number of graphs related to this topic, so I’ll just sum them all up here.
Use stop words in your anchor texts (the, and, by, at, etc. etc.)
Use multiple words in your anchors… at least 2
Get some nofollow links
Continuously get fresh, new links every month
Get links from tons of referring domains
Get links from news domains
Link deep into your site (not just to the homepage)
Use lots of branded anchors (yourdomain.tld, yourdomain) — at least 15% of your total links

Social Signals and Backlings.

According to the email “Google explicitly said they don’t use social signals as a ranking factor. But is a huge question as to what they do with them. Google talks about how complicated it is to assess social signals. and as Doug Says “We’re seeing great success right now ranking pages without any social whatsoever.”

This issue is not at all clear, but creating social interaction is good for business and social engagement is an important indicator of a sites popularity and relevance. We continue to use social to get the message out to where people are and believe that it influences search ranging and indexing of sites by the search engines.

Nofollow Links Help

It is smart to acquire nofollow links practically from the beginning. It is unnatural to have all your links as follow, and “we’ve seen multiple case studies demonstrating that nofollow links can help a page rank all by themselves.”

Press Releases

Dan Says: “Backlinks from News Domains” was one of the most highly correlated factors, tied with “Having New Backlinks” which is obviously important too. This obviously goes hand in hand with nofollow links being a positive factor, since most press releases are nofollow.

What’s a Safe Ratio of Keyworded Anchor Texts

“According to SearchMetrics, the right balance falls somewhere in the 20-30% range. This of course varies by keyword, so if you want to be super-careful, use Majestic SEO to look up the approximate ratios of the other sites ranking in your niche. But based on this study, you generally want to shoot for around 25%.”

Well that is hotly debatable- Neil Patell says 2%. I checked with MajesticSEO and a few other sites and it seems that 15% is common. But hey this is something you just have to measure and anticipate the trends. Be save and stay under 15% unless you have a high authority site with lots of high PR sites linking to you.

Exact Match Keyword Domain Name/URL – No Longer a Factor

“Exact match domains took a huge hit this year.It is, however, still important to have the keyword in the title, H1, body and meta description.”

My view is partial match domains work so long as its natural. Those long tail exact matches are a liability.

Smaller Page File Sizes Rank Better for Mobile Searches

Dan Says “This is especially important for local business websites. Keep your page sizes low.”

We say – use Responsive Web Design – More info >>>

“See how much of these factors you can incorporate into both your Newswire.net Press Releases, and your other web pages. I am sure you will notice the bump” Dan Brown – Newswire Network