Source: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/16/5-actionable-seo-tactics-based-actual-data/#gref
Many SEO blogs offer opinions and suggestions regarding driving traffic from Google to your site that aren’t proven to work. However, the following tactics, backed by hard data from a study of 1 million Google results by Brian Dean at Backlinko, can do wonders for your campaign.
Real SEO data can help your campaign
Make sure all your published content is long-form. The study revealed that long-form content outperformed short blog posts.
Focus content pieces on a single subject. Content that delved into the subject matter resonated with readers more than those that only briefly touched on various topics on a superficial level.
The more legitimate back links, the better. The number one ranking factor that led to higher rankings is the number of different sites linking to yours.
Page loading speed is crucial. Using a cache plugin and reducing image file sizes are proven to improve page load speed.
Include images in the content. The use of images correlated significantly with Google rankings.