#1 Title Tag
#2 Anchor Text of Links
#3 Keyword Use in Document Text
#4 Accessibility of Document
#5 External Links to Linking Pages
#6 Primary Subject Matter of Site
#7 Internal Site Links
#8 Link Popularity of Site
#9 Uniqueness of Text
#10 Age Factor

Title Tag:

Denoted by the < title > tags in HTML, this tag always shows at the top of a browser window and often appears in the results as the title of the web page. You should use unique Title tags on every page of your site. Keep the title tags short and concise and focus on no more then three key phrases.

Anchor Text of Links:

Several factors involved with this including the phrasing, words used, and order and length of a link’s anchor text. Specific anchor text links help a site to rank better for that particular term/phrase in the search engines. IE.< ahref = " http://www.example.com " > this is the anchor text < /a >

Keyword Use in Document Text:

Basically this is your content on your pages. You don’t want to overuse your target keywords nor do you want to under use them. Good practices is to have ~500 words on the page with about 1-2% keyword density.

Accessibility of Document:

This isn’t necessarily a ranking issue but is extremely important to rank in the first place. Accessibility can be compromised by using URL re-directs that search engine spiders cannot follow, hiding content behind select forms, javascript, or pages using long dynamic strings IE. eaxmple.com/test.aspx?testID=75858&TabID=654956&UrlID=234. Frankly put if a search engine cannot find your content then you cannot rank for it.

External Links to Linking Pages:

Quality > Quantity. At first glance one might think the more links pointing to a page on your site the better the chance is has to rank for that term. This isn’t true in some cases. When developing “backlinks” you should try and obtain links on other relevant sites. Gaining thousands of links from random, obscure sites can actually hurt your rankings if you’re not careful.

Primary Subject Matter of Site:

This one is pretty much common sense but important none the less. A site that specializes in just basketball for example, is more likely to rank for the term “Basketball” then a site that specializes in Football.

Internal Site Links:

This for example is your site navigation as well as any link on your site that points to another page of your site. It is important to use keywords throughout your site that link to other relevant pages. Beware however, if your not careful you can hurt your rankings if you abuse this. The longer an internal link is there, the greater weight it carries as well.

Link Popularity of Site:

This is what makes an “authority site”. Link popularity simply measures the importance of all the links to a unique domain, the more links from related, on topic sites the better. This factor really helps you rank for terms that you might not necessarily optimize for. IE. Terms you don’t purchase links for, terms you might not have in your title tag, terms that are less competitive etc. etc.

Uniqueness of Text:

The sites overall uniqueness of text is a key determinant of its ranking. Sites with template style text, where every word is the same on each page except only a handle full of terms just doesn’t look as “authoritative” as sites which have unique content on each page of the site.

Age Factor:

The age factor applies to basically everything. Age of domain, age of back link, age of internal link, how often text is changed, how often back links are acquired. In most cases the older it is the better. This aspect helps show authority to the search engine.

Summary:

Optimizing your site for the search engines can be a daunting task. The following list is a good general breakdown of what to look for when tackling this challenge. Keep in mind search engines don’t like you “gaming” them. All the factors stated above should be done to a degree, carefully optimizing and drawing the line of “over optimization” is critical. Steadily build unique content. Strike link deals with relevant sites that are not spammy in nature. The best piece of advice to follow in my opinion is to optimize for the end user.

Posted in Linking 101 |