9 key ranking factors for my top ten search traffic articles

Today I rolled up my sleeves a bit and took a look at my top ranking content looking for some correlations that could shed light on why they do so well. Here's my list of similarities among most of my top performing articles (in search): 1. Internal linking done right 9 out of 10 have more than 9 internal links pointing to them. The most has 33 internal links pointing to it. These are interesting numbers because the range of internal links is fairly contained. There aren't any posts with hundreds of internal links pointing to it. The internal linking for these was done methodically by linking from tightly related articles. Likewise, while one article only has 2 internal links to it, the rest have 9 or more. While that does not mean 9 to 33 internal links is the sweet spot, it does provide for sound guidance for other articles on my site. Many of those links were made with the help of Link Whisper. If you build links among your own content, Link Whisper can speed up the process. ​[Save $20 on Link Whisper here](=). ​ 2. Used Ahrefs to find the keywords I remember, what is now many years back, reading about Ahrefs. I wasn't a user then. It was pricey so I didn't bother. That was penny wise, pound stupid. Eventually, I bit the bullet and signed up for Ahrefs. I finally had a very powerful keyword research tool at my disposal. I was a kid in the candy store figuring out all the ways to find great keywords/topics to go after. Since then Ahrefs has been my ever-present digital companion. Now you can [try some of Ahrefs features for free](=). Specifically, you can now use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about your own site(s). It's a good amount of features for nothing. The best aspect of the free Ahrefs account is you get nearly a full site audit so you can see your inbound links, keywords you rank for and a whole lot more. It's mighty handy and it gives you a good taste of whether you want to upgrade to a paid version. If you've avoided Ahrefs on account of the cost, I recommend you [open a free account here](=). 3. Five out of ten of those articles have custom graphics (illustrations) This is actually one correlation I had not spotted before. It's definitely illuminating. I've long enjoyed a lot of traffic to posts with custom graphics and illustrations but it sure hits home that half of my top ten search traffic posts have custom illustrations. They're not quick or easy to produce yet they're a huge value-add to my content. I've long invested regularly into getting custom graphics done up for many articles. It pays off. 4. Word count matters... at least having some text matters This is one of the most annoying aspects of Google and that is you must include some text even when the main content is an illustration. Three of my top ten search traffic articles are essentially graphics. The graphics provide all the information promised by the title. Over the years I've tried to rank such posts with almost no text and it never ranks. When I add 500 or more words (often more unfortunately), they rank. This is super annoying but I guess Google needs text in order to understand what it's about. 5. I wrote four out of ten articles Most of the content on my site was written by hired writers yet I wrote four out of ten of my best performing articles. I went all out on the ones I wrote; they were topics I was interested in and keywords I wanted to rank for. On the face of it one might conclude I should have written all the content but I don't think I'd be ahead. Plenty of content I didn't write also performs well... and there's now way I'd have been able to produce all that content. 6. Six out of ten have been updated at least once In fact, most of those that were updated have been updated multiple times over the years. 7. All ten articles are more than two years old I believe this is a significant reason they perform well... they've had time to naturally attract links and climb the SERPs. Most are 3+ years old. 8. All ten have a good number of referring external domains Here are the number of referring domains (per [Ahrefs](=)). 46 referring domains 184 referring domains 218 referring domains 50 referring domains 33 referring domains 23 referring domains 39 referring domains 75 referring domains 71 referring domains I didn't go out and build any of them. They're natural. Some are good links. Some are useless. 9. All ten articles are part of a large cluster of tightly-related articles What does all this mean? While it's all correlation, I think when you put it altogether, the following helps content to rank in Google: Inbound links matter - both from external domains and internal URLs. Custom graphics or illustrations work very well. These are shared on social and attract plenty of links. Very effective. Content quality matters... All ten of these articles are excellent. Four of them I wrote and I went all out on them. Content updating can help: the only reason I updated the content was because there were updates to add. I don't usually update content just for the fun of it. I suspect updating the content helped (but I really don't know for sure). Keyword selection matters: I found these great keywords using Ahrefs. They provide decent keyword search volume while not being too difficult to rank for. Content clusters, aka topical authority, works. This is, in my view, a relevant ranking factor. 6 of the ten articles are the cornerstone for their respective clusters. Word count matters... to an extent. You can't (at least I can't) publish a great illustration on its lonesome and expect Google to rank it. It needs some content to give it context for Google. Beyond the top 10 I reviewed my top 50 articles and I can safely say, these exhibit much of the same as the top ten... namely... custom graphics which helps attract links and all part of large topical clusters targeting good keywords. Jon Fatstacksblog.com [Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | 2016 Hill Drive, North Vancouver, British Columbia V7H 2N5