Semji has published a new study that presents an assessment of the SEO performance of content on Google. To carry out this analysis, the solution examined more than 20,000 customer pages, 500,000 competitor pages and 50,000 SERPs. The objective of this study: to understand Google’s behavior in relation to content and provide advice to improve its natural referencing strategy in 2023…
If you want to read about SEO trends rather focused on the challenges faced by web professionals, you can also consult the article “8 SEO & Content trends to remember for 2023”.
Discover 5 key takeaways from this study:
1. The length of a content impacts its SEO performance
The question of whether content length is a performance metric is often debated in the SEO world. Although Google claims that this is not a direct criterion for positioning, many experts observe a difference in performance between short and long content.
By examining articles, we find that content longer than 2000 words generates an average of 168 clicks, while content shorter than 500 words only generates 16.
This shows that there is a significant difference in traffic between long content and short content, with the former generating up to 10x more traffic for only 4x more words.
Although the length of the content is not a direct criterion of positioning, it is clear that it has an impact on the performance of the content.
Long-form content provides more opportunities to provide useful and relevant information to users, which may encourage them to stay on the site longer and engage more with the content.
2. User behavior differs between pages with and without Position 0
Is position 0 really advantageous for the performance of content? Although obtaining a P0 is the most interesting in terms of click-through rate (17%) compared to other positioned content, it should however be noted that the answer to the question is almost entirely visible on the SERP. This results in a lower CTR than for a “classic” first position.
Indeed, on a SERP without position 0, the URL in first position obtains a CTR of 25%, which is higher than for a P0. In the end, the first position on a SERP without position 0 remains more interesting in terms of performance.
The presence of a 0 position in search engine results pages (SERPs) also affects user behavior.
We note that for pages positioned as position 0, the bounce rate is higher and the session duration is shorter than for pages positioned in first position on a SERP without position 0.
This difference can be explained by the nature of the keywords which trigger shorter answers and therefore more quickly consulted by users.
3. A high Domain Rating (DR) influences the positioning of the page
From the analysis of the 520,000 SERPs, it was found that URLs positioned on keywords with a high search volume (10,000 or more) generally have a domain rating high, averaging 80.
This may explain why some pages succeed more easily than others in positioning themselves on highly sought-after keywords.
If your website has a low domain authority, it is recommended to start by positioning yourself on long tail keywords. This will allow you to increase your visibility and therefore strengthen your domain authority, before tackling ultra-competitive keywords.
4. Re-optimizing existing content can increase traffic
Re-optimizing existing content can have a significant impact on traffic. The analysis of more than 60,000 reoptimized articles with a Content Score of Semji from 90 to 100 shows a more than 60% increase in traffic.
Adding content is relatively simple, with a median value of just 150 words. However, re-optimization is not limited to adding content, but also includes rephrasing, processing search intent, enriching vocabulary, among others.
It is essential to update content regularly to maintain continuous traffic. Several strategies can be put in place to reoptimize your content:
- Write longer and more complete content than that of your competitors;
- Identify missing information among the first three search results and add it to your content;
- Structure a coherent writing plan and add in the Hn tags the topics relevant to your audience (ie, search intentions) around the main targeted keyword;
- Revise the mesh of your pages;
- Improve semantic richness, etc.
5. Updating existing content involves a temporary drop in traffic
As explained above, reoptimizing editorial content can be very beneficial for your site, especially if you have a lot of it. However, your content may lose SEO visibility (traffic, position, impressions) for a week after the update.
This phenomenon is normal and generally temporary, because the traffic goes back on average after two weeks.
It should be noted that we observe a first level of traffic gain after about a month. Just like new content, it takes 4-6 months to achieve the optimal SEO gains. This duration can vary depending on the difficulty of the keyword, changes on the SERP, seasonality, etc.
These five key points are important to take into account to adjust your strategy and justify your choices and your results!
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