6 key search-ranking factors 2017
6 key search-ranking factors 1. Content relevance and SEO rank Google ultimately became the dominant search engine because it is adept at displaying, on the first page of search results, the most relevant content that matches a keyword query. Eventually, users came to assume the search engine only shows the most relevant results first, a behavior that web-usability consultant Jakob Nielsen dubs, "Google Gullibility." Content relevance is often assumed or overlooked in studies of ranking factors, but it's still the most important factor, according to Eric Enge, CEO of Stone Temple Consulting , which offers content marketing, SEO, social media, and Google-penalty recovery services. Relevance is often presumed to be "on" or "off," so content is either relevant or irrelevant to a query. "But that's not really the right view in my opinion," Enge says. "You can't assume that relevance is a binary factor, where you assign a z...