Future SEO Ranking Factors
The game of SEO is always changing. More than ten years ago all you had to worry about was on-page factors and keyword stuffing. Five years ago buying links could guarantee you a top ranking. Where is the future of SEO heading?
First of all, let me stress that the importance of quality content and links isn't going away any time soon. Sites that produce quality content will get links and have users that keep coming back for more. Focus there first, and then worry about some of these other factors.
Page Loading
There is no doubt that faster sites convert better than slow sites. Visitors do not want to sit around waiting for your site to load. They are there to find information, and they want to find it quickly. The goal for all of the pages on my site is four seconds.
How fast is your site loading? Take a look at the "Site Performance" link in Google's Webmaster Tools, or take a link at Pingdom Tools. Follow Google's recommendations, look to upgrade to hosting solution, and read my how to speed up your blog for ideas on how to make your site faster.
Social Media
Google is already using Twitter and Facebook to help determine relevant content. The more times your pages get tweeted, retweeted, and liked on Facebook the better you are going to rank.
If you want to improve your social media score, get active on each of the platforms. Make it easy for visitors to follow you on either and use it to communicate, not just push your products or post automated junk.
Clickthrough Rate
If you are lucky enough to have a high listing on a results page you better make sure that it's relevant to what users are searching for. If they are not clicking through then Google is going to think you are not relevant for those keywords and knock you down the rankings.
Want a higher clickthrough rate? Treat your descriptions the same way you would a PPC ad. Call the user to take action and click through to find what they are looking for. Use the keyword in the title and description so it shows up bold.
Bounce Rate
So a user is clicking through from the results page to your site, but once they get there they quickly realize it's not what they are looking for. Google is tracking bounce rates and if you aren't giving users what they want, they will "bounce" you down the results pages.
To help improve your bounce rate, give the user what they want. Write quality pages or try and ranking product pages for what the user would be searching for, and not something that is borderline relevant.