SEO is NOT All About PageRank and Backlinks

I have fallen victim to this, myself. The first image that would come to my head, when contemplating search/keyword rankings, was an angry mob of people pushing each other over just to grab the next backlink, in order to compete. Google has said, a number of times, that there are over 200 different factors in their search ranking algorithm. Let’s go over what some of those might be:

Page Titles

This one is big-time important – probably the biggest factor in on-page optimization. I see a lot of sites that have “site name | page title” as their formatting standard. Having tested this many times, I can confidently say that putting your keywords towards the front of your title will rank heavier than having the keywords at the end. Instead of using that format, try JUST using the page title. Having unique titles on your pages will benefit you far more than using the same generic site name or page name format. If you feel you have gained trust and rankability by search engines, then you can feel free to append you titles with your site name (page title | site name).

Keyword Density and Proximity

Sometimes people forget that Google crawls their content. If you do a search for a keyword, chances are, you are going to see some page content highlighted in the SERPs (search engine result pages). Make sure your content contains the keywords you are optimizing for. You don’t want your keywords too-tightly packed together. That’s just not natural. Spread them across the page, BUT be sure not to separate them too much. For example, if you are optimizing for “red shoes,” the phrase, “we sell red shoes” is going to have a heavier ranking factor than a page that mentions “red” and “shoes” at separate points or in different paragraphs (keep your keyword proximity appropriate).

Font Tags

Then, of course, there is the heading hierarchy. <H1> tags will rank stronger than <H2> tags, which will rank higher than text in <H3> tags, and so on. However, you don’t want to abuse heading use. Keep the <H1> tag for your main title or topic for a particular page. Search engines know when you are using the <H1> tag to spam the system. Use <H2> and <H3> for other headings.

Additionally, keyword placement matters, too. Try to keep your main keywords at the front of your <H> tags. However, I would not stress this too much. It’s better that you have good, readable copy than titles and tags that look like word mashes.

Font Format

Another thing that a lot of people don’t consider is formatting. Bold text, I find, puts an emphasis on words ranked within your content. You don’t think Google, in all its infinite wisdom, can’t tell when words in a sentence are being emphasized? It can.

Linking Structure

Make sure your pages are easy to find by adding a linking structure such as a breadcrumb. This tells search engines how to find your pages that may be a little deeper than your top 3 landing pages. Also make sure that you are not linking to one thing within your site too many times. For example: if you have the home button in your main navigation, and in your footer or sidebar, add rel="nofollow" to those anchors, you don’t want extraneous linking draining the link juice from your pages.

Hidden Content

Just don’t do it. Don’t use CSS or any other code to hide any content from visitors. Do not try to make copy invisible – you will be penalized. CSS rollovers and things like that are usually okay, but try to do it as little as possible, and if you decide to use them, then make sure that the pop-up content is not overloaded with keywords.

So what?

These are just a few examples. Most of the 200 signals that Google uses to rank you, you can figure out yourself. Don’t stress too much in putting together backlinks, and don’t stress your page rank. Make sure your site is efficient and interesting – then links and pagerank will follow. In a future article, I will test some elements against each other to see exactly how Google weighs some of these factors when ranking websites. I have already developing hypotheses and started testing. Look forward to it.

Tagged as: link building, on-page optimization, PageRank