SEO Ranking Factors for Some Business Verticals and Their Significance for Local Businesses

Since the inception of local SEO, there have been several changes local businesses had to go through when it comes to ranking in Google SERPs. First, local businesses had to understand Google algorithms in order to simply qualify. Then there was in introduction to local ranking factors. And now, the trends suggest that websites will need to consider vertical-specific ranking factors in the future.

Looking at the scenario in general sense, websites will need to have something more than just backlinks and matching keywords in order to get on the top of ranking.

A website only is not the solution for future success

There has been a hot discussion about the importance of websites getting balanced with that of business profile directories such as Yelp, Facebook and Google My Business. Here, Google tells the same kind of thing.

According to Google, one-size-fits-all is not the solution that is going to be provided to the users. In other words, Google is tending to provide more specific information to the users whether it comes from the website or the profiles.

But, there are a lot of businesses that cannot simply rely on the social or local pages only. Such businesses need to have websites to provide better elaboration to the users.

Having that said, it’s worth mentioning the study conducted by Searchmetrics on high ranking websites. This research was conducted to study the vertical-specific ranking factors related to the websites. The results involved direct ranking factors as well as the ones which don’t directly affect the websites as direct factors but play a role in consequential ranking of the websites.

Summary of study

The comparison between the top 10 websites’ keyword searches in given verticals and average benchmarks for universal search results are as under.

Finance websites

• File size 30 % smaller
• 40% less images
• Faster loading time by one second
• More likely to have bullet points by 23%
• Keyword repetition one-third as frequent in the body
• Less internal links by 81%

Travel websites

• More images by 38%
• More internal linking by 23%
• Word count higher by 57%
• Keyword repetition less than other sites by 50%
• HTTPS results fewer in number by 50%
• Loading time 3 seconds slower

E-commerce websites

• 40% more Interactive elements than those of other websites.
• 25 % higher word count and 70% more bullet points.
• Enhanced internal linking by73%
• File size larger by 32%
• Video integration less in number by 30%
• Facebook integration less in number by 70%

Media Websites

• Rely greatly on social signals as it has 106 percent greater Pinterest social signals, 29 percent greater Google+ signals, 39 percent greater Facebook signals, and 17 percent more Tweets.
• External links greater in number by 16%
• 7 % more images as compared to other websites
• Greater use of keywords by 12 %
• Loading time 4 seconds slower.