A new SEO study reveals something new about the individual ranking factors and what you need to know to reach the first page of the search results. Authorityhacker pulled 120,000 random keywords from the Google Keyword Planner for the study, half of which have at least 1,000 searches per month. The study can be summarised as follows:
According to the study, the top position is most likely the most relevant result. That means Google will display a result or a well-known brand even if it (tends to) break the ranking factors and SEO rules.
Perhaps a little frustrating for everyone trying to rank higher with their lesser-known blogs and posts. But the study showed another astonishing result here: the success of featured snippets.
Featured snippets are displayed above the organic search results and below the ads. They are there to answer the searcher’s question directly and are also simply called “answer boxes”.
That means the greatest SEO potential lies exactly in this area, because Google is steering more and more towards faster answers and fewer clicks on SERPs.
It is also very striking that all first-page results showed a high average score (over 90 percent) in Google’s Lighthouse audits… A coincidence?… hardly!
There were also some SEO rumours in 2019 that turned out to be false. According to the study, these include, for example, that Google would treat high-volume keywords differently. Or that embedded YouTube videos would be preferred over other video platforms. The claim that the length of the URL is a strong ranking factor is also only a rumour.
Alongside a few technical necessities, a clear trend can be seen in 2019: WRITE FOR THE READER, NOT FOR THE SEARCH ENGINE. And in 2020 especially, it will not only be Google that rewards that.