To arrive at their list of best-matching web pages, search engines use a combination of on-page and off-page factors to determine how they rank for specific keywords. On-page factors are those elements that can be evaluated directly from a web page document (such as the title tag, keyword frequency, and also details about the website the page is on). Off-page factors basically refer to link-based analysis, or rather, the analysis of web pages that link to that particular document.
Page Ranking Factors
How relevant is this document to the search query? This is determined through the following factors. Please note that I am putting only those that are MOST important:
title tag
The title tag reflects the content of the document. This is elementary, and yet many people get it wrong. How you refer to the document makes a big difference, and if you’re not putting your important keywords in the title tag, search engines will think this isn’t a relevant page (for those keywords).
For example, if you have a website about exercise equipment and one of the pages is a ProForm treadmill review, what do you think would be a better title tag?
* ProForm Treadmill Review >> URL.com
Gold…
* URL.com >> Treadmills >> ProForm Review
The first one is much better optimized for that page’s key term: “ProForm Treadmill Review.” The second one will just confuse the search engine and as a result of the unclear title tag, that page would have ranked much lower.
Put your keywords (focused and specific to that page) first.
Use of keywords in the text of the document
Keyword density has been abused ever since search engines began to catch on. Search engines no longer measure density: they analyze your content looking for various types of ways your keywords are present (keyword concurrency, related words, keywords in tags (headings, style, image), keywords as anchor text to other pages) and base your decision on that.
Using keywords correctly is difficult when you are also trying to write for your readers and therefore trying to maintain a natural flow in your writing. Most people tend to resort to search engine spam, forgetting their readers and writing highly optimized pages that are tailor-made for search engines but scare readers away.
The solution to this is to make sure your page topic is extremely focused and specific; This will allow you to talk in depth about one thing at once: the optimal keyword usage you want will emerge from this type of focused writing. .
Document Accessibility
Accessibility here refers to two things:
1. How accessible is your website:
* easy to follow links (plain html links, not hidden behind javascript redirects or embedded in flash)
* common navigation structure (menu)
* sitemaps (google and regular)
2. And how accessible are the pages:
* no extra long URLs with multiple parameters (like [http://www.url.com/random.php?id=1&x=2&y=3..]. (etc))
* Keep all javascript code in an external .js file.
* Minimize the amount of flash and other non-indexable content on your pages.
Main theme of the site
The theme of your website is very important (usually determined from the home page, but also through an analysis of your web pages as a whole): for a search engine, the more focused the site is on a theme , the better it will be to provide information. on that topic – this knowledge of course is combined with the wealth of links (what everyone else is saying about that site) to give definitive answers.
keyword spam
In short, keyword spamming is the easiest and stupidest way to get your website discovered by search engines. This includes keyword stuffing in meta tags, title tags, alt image tags, etc. White on white text is also another form of keyword spam and is picked up by search engines quite easily.
Avoid keyword spam – you can spend your time doing something much more important, like adjusting your title tags.
Off-Page Ranking Factors
Everything I’ve said about on-page factors is relevant, but the reality is that with an overwhelming wealth of links, you can overcome all of those factors (in most cases, just get the title tag right, use the word key once or twice in the text and boom, your link profile can take care of the rest).
Off-page factors are important because of a ‘real life’ analogy (link-based analytics) that Google brought to the search engine world and that other SEs have subsequently adopted to some extent. The Google analogy with the real world:
The links act as quality editorial recommendations/votes for the web pages. As each “editor” is different in terms of knowledge, experience and main topic, these votes also have different values. Experience in an industry is measured by the number and quality of votes obtained.
This is democracy in search: a good idea in theory, but in practice quite unwieldy, especially given the temptation to game the system and create a bloated link wealth by hunting for links via spam blogging at one end and buying links. in the other one.
In this context, what are the key off-page factors that search engines consider most important?
link anchor text
The anchor text of links pointing to a web page is just as important as the title tag of the page itself. This anchor text acts as a quick identification mechanism of what the linked page is about. If you can somehow control your anchor text, you can ensure that you get optimized links.
One way to make sure you stay in control of your anchor text is to remember that when you’re exchanging/buying links, it’s most effective to give people the exact html code to insert into your website. People are lazy and for someone who is not very handy with html/site coding, this small step may be the reason you get that link.
Be sure to vary your anchor text considerably – use related words and extended key phrases as much as possible.
Links to documents from the internal pages of your site
This refers to the links that the website gets from the internal pages of the host website. Essentially, while internal links aren’t as important as external links for ranking purposes, they can give a big boost, especially if the anchor text is optimized and these links are within the content.
This is one way you can use to transfer your site’s wealth of links to your most important pages.
External links to the document
How many links does this page receive from other websites? While your internal pages may not get many links from outside your website, any page that does so automatically has a great chance of being ranked for your key terms.
When you’re exchanging links, getting a couple of links to your internal pages is always a good idea, especially if they focus on a popular keyword. Also, once you start creating good, linkable content, people who visit your website will gradually start linking to your pages as well.
Learn more about each of the categories above and apply for your own website. With a better understanding of on-page optimization factors and off-page optimization factors, you will surely increase your website’s search engine result placements.