SEMrush is one of the most popular SEO toolset company. They have released their study, for a second year now, on Google ranking factors. SEMrush believe that the study greatly matters and is going to rank very well in Google. Over the last few years, many companies have released the same data in Google to conduct studies about Google ranking.
SEMrush did analysis of 600,000 keywords in their datasets. For these keywords, they considered top 100 search results globally and looked at the findings of the study. They factored in several things that Google does not allow using as ranking signal. These includes factors like web site traffic and user behavior. Google denies use of metrics like time on site and bounce rates that are basically web site user behavior.
Top SEO factors for SEMrush
- In the study, direct website traffic was considered as top Google ranking factor.
- User behavior signals including pages per session, time on site and bounce rate.
- Another very important ranking element is backlinks factors.
- In backlinks, anchor texts are less important compared to ranking factors.
- Because backlink factors affect each other, you must boost the values of all your factors for your position to change. The study showed that you cannot boost some and ignore others.
- Branded keywords always return less popular, but more relevant, websites on first position.
Mostly on top of the rank are domains that have HTTPS.
The study also showed that on-page SEO factors like meta description, keywords in title and body of text were less impactful as compared to other factors.
The study measured the following 17 factors:
*Direct Website Visists *Time on site *Pages per session *Bounce Rate *Total Referring Domains *Total backlinks *Total Referring Ips *Total follow-backlinks *Content Length *Website Security (HTTPS) *Total anchors *Keyword in anchor *Keyword in body *Keyword density *Keyword in title *Keyword in meta *Video on page

Surprisingly, the SEMrush study specifically used signals that Google had denied use as ranking signals. Did you notice that?