By Jon Bergan (c) 2008
Websites are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways of
advertising. Whether it be a business, its product or service or
something completely different, everyone of all ages is turning
to the web as a method of getting their message out there. With
the popularity of this marketing medium increasing and the
number of websites always growing, it is obvious that everyone
wants to appear at the top of Google's search engine rankings.
Achieving such a task is never an easy feat, however with a bit
of perseverance, one can definitely increase their chances of
reaching that glorious first page result.
Given that there is a heap of websites out there who are on the
first page, what is their secret? It is a little industry term
called "SEO" and it stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO
basically consists of the customization of your website, its
content and its internal and external links to assist in the
overall indexing and ranking of your website in popular search
engines. There are many contributing factors that are used in
determining a website's ranking and every search engine is
different. This makes trying to optimize your site for Google,
Yahoo, Live and the many others quite a painstaking task.
As most of us are aware, Google is currently the most popular
search engine for the majority of Internet users. As such, it is
only normal that we'd want to focus our sights on achieving a
higher ranking within Google first with the hope that the rest
will follow. To do this, we must start a journey that could
potentially take months before we start seeing any real change,
however we have to start somewhere.
Our journey begins by defining some of the key contributing
factors that Google uses to determine a website's and webpage's
ranking within its results. These factors range from keyword use
to manipulating internal and external links and the list goes
on. To get you started, we have listed the top twenty factors
that you should focus on in order to help get your website that
little bit closer to the top of the search engine results
listings.
Keyword Use Factors
The following components relate to the use of search
query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.
1. Keyword Use in Title Tag - Placing the targeted search term
or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header.
2. Keyword Use in Body Text - Using the targeted search term in
the visible, HTML text of the page.
3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords - Topical
relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords.
4. Keyword Use in H1 Tag - Creating an H1 tag with the targeted
search term/phrase.
5. Keyword Use in Domain Name & Page URL - Including the
targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e.
keyword.com plus target terms in the webpage URL, i.e.
seomoz.org/keyword-phrase.
Page Attributes
The following elements comprise how Google interprets
specific data about a webpage independent of keywords.
6. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure -
Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing
to the target page.
7. Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages - Do links
on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?
8. Age of Document - Older pages may be perceived as more
authoritative while newer pages may be more temporarily relevant.
9. Amount of Indexable Text Content - Refers to the literal
quantity of visible HTML text on a page.
10. Quality of the Document Content (as measured algorithmically) -
Assuming search engines can use text, visual or other analysis
methods to determine the validity and value of content, this
metric would provide some level of rating.
Site/Domain Attributes
The factors below contribute to Google's rankings based on the
site/domain on which a page resides.
11. Global Link Popularity of Site - The overall link
weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites
across the web (both link quality and quantity).
12. Age of Site - Not the date of original registration of the
domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the
search engines (note that this can change if a domain switches
ownership).
13. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site - The
subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to
the target page and the target keyword.
14. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - The link
weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers
in the online world.
15. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site - The frequency and timing of
external sites linking in to the given domain.
Inbound Link Attribute
These pieces affect Google's weighting of links from external
websites pointing to a page and ultimately will assist in the
ranking of that page.
16. Anchor Text of Inbound Link.
17. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site.
18. Topical Relationship of Linking Page.
19. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - The link
weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers
in the online world.
20. Age of Link.
Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes
There are also some points we should make before you start
getting your hands dirty. With any type of SEO marketing, there
are some things that can actually have a negative impact on your
ranking. These following components may negatively affect a
spider's ability to crawl a page or its rankings at Google.
* Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots.
* Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the
Index.
* External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites.
* Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages.
* Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming).
It's now time to get busy! Start prioritizing your tasks,
modifying your content and building your internal and external
links to meet some of the above guidelines. Keep in mind that
improving indexing is mostly a technical task and improving
ranking is mostly a business/marketing strategy. What might work
now may not work in the future and finally, it takes time. Loads
of time. Still, with a bit of trial and error and a good dose of
persistence, you can achieve the search engine ranking you're
after.
Jon Bergan is the owner of Bergan Blue, an Australian based
creative design firm focused on bridging the gap between the
online world of the Internet with the offline world of Marketing.
Please visit http://www.berganblue.com.au for more information.
Copyright � 2008 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Print this page
