If someone tells you they know how Google’s search engine ranks articles, walk away from them. In 2006 Google said its search engine used more than 200 signals to rank pages. Has that total reached 1,000 by now? Several thousands? What we know, says Stephen Kenwright, strategy director at U.K. PR firm Branded3, is how important optimizing is. He also emphasizes the importance of ranking factors that can be influenced without too much trouble and money. Kenwright’s new study that ranks important factors is based on the firm’s work with some 100 companies and tracking about 15 competitors and 500 keywords per website. His results of the 10 most-important SEO ranking factors are below. Nearly as significant, his list of the easiest factors to influence follows (left). The table below shows a slew of factors beyond links that can influence SEO, such as page load speed, responsive design and mobile optimization. Of course strong content that results in long periods of time spent on the page remains critical.
