In an earlier blog, we discussed the basics of search-engine optimization. We learned what it was and how it can help your local business. That being said, digital marketing changes year on year. Rank factors that were important in 2013 are no longer as relevant today – and vice versa. Today, we discuss the principle 2017 SEO ranking factors; those SEO factors that bear more relevance today than ever before. Staying ahead of the competition means staying on top of SEO ranking factors.

Our Las Vegas web design and SEO marketing team engage in continuous professional development (CPD). In other words, our team engage, learn and adapt their strategy based on the currently best available evidence. As SEO factors change, our team change their strategies accordingly. As the leading SEO agency throughout Las Vegas, we understand and appreciate the need to stay ahead, too. Below, we elaborate more on what these 2017 SEO factors are and how they can help your search rank.

SEO Ranking in 2017

Marketing experts are chewing through the data as we speak. It’s their job, after all.

Evidence can at times, though, be sketchy. Conclusions are often overestimated. But their core analysis is very often precise, or at least approximates closer to the truth than any other competing analysis. SEO is a very fluid subject. This not only means that some rank factors become irrelevant in time, but that others become slightly or even majorly more important. A rank factor with an importance of 14% 3-years ago might be 21% today. With these changes must come adjustments on the part of local businesses.

We can summarize the 2017 SEO ranking factors into the following broad themes:

• Link signals – by far the most important ranking factor. Link signals refers to the quality of links pointing to your website, how those links are made and how frequently new links are pointing to your website each month. This comprises almost a third of ranking importance overall.
• On-page signals – this constitutes approximately one-quarter of total ranking importance. On-page signals refer to consistency in online presence (name, address and phone number use throughout the web), what keywords are used and how variant they are, as well as the authority of your website itself.
• Mobility – by mobility we mean how traffic interacts with your website. This interaction could take the form of mobile interaction, how quickly visitors leave your website and how many conversions you manage to accrue. Mobility constitutes approximately one-tenth of total ranking importance.

So, these three factors alone – link signals, on-page signals and mobility – constitutes approximately 65% of SEO ranking value in 2017.
The remaining 35% of SEO rank value comes from social media use (4%), reviews (7%), effective use of Google My Business (7%), citation value (8%) and through personalization of your website. From this overview, we can see that any construct of an SEO campaign must take all these factors into consideration – but must do so in a proportionate way. For example, we would be in error to focus twice as much attention on reviews and half that attention on on-page signals etc.

Our Las Vegas SEO company takes each of these factors very seriously. It can take 3-6 months to rank any given website, often considerably longer for new websites within a competitive niche. Any successful SEO campaign must reflect the changing standards of SEO. Failure to do so results in an ineffective and inefficient campaign that compromises your ability to compete with other local businesses within your niche. If you want your local business to success in 2017, these are the factors you should consider.

What next?

Our Las Vegas SEO experts have assisted innumerable brands throughout the city; helping them gain digital traction; more traffic, more leads and more conversions. If you’re interested in our SEO services, contact a member of our team today. We will conduct an internet marketing analysis of your business – for free; helping you identify areas of strength and weakness. From there, we can develop a long-term SEO ranking strategy to get your local business back on the map.

Fusionvegas is a web development and SEO marketing agency based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Return to our blog soon as we explain further how digital marketing can help propel your local business in the online world.