The Moz ranking factors survey is one of the most looked forward to surveys in the industry. Every two years Moz asks the most powerful SEOs in the industry what they think are the most important ranking factors right now. Recently, they published the 2013 ranking factors survey results.
There are three really important and striking results to come out of this report. Succinctly stated, they are:
- Anchor text is still the most important ranking factor
- On-page keyword-based content is still a high ranking factor
- Social signals have a high correlation to rankings but should not be considered a cause of high rankings
In other words, not much has changed in two years.
The survey results, however, do point to some changes in the future. SEOs seem to think that future rankings may be determined by higher importance on social signals, authorship, and structured data. But they’ve been saying that for at least two years.
Going forward, Internet marketers should continue to focus on on-page content and links but start incorporating social media marketing, Google authorship, and structured data – an on-page factor.
Another consideration looked at by SEOs involved in the survey is exact match domains. Some SEOs think they are important and some don’t. But even those who say they are believe that at times they are more important and at times less important. Over time, exact match domain names may be somewhat important but aren’t in the top three.