SEOmoz recently came out with their 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors report that analyzes what influences search ranking. The report compiles survey results from 130+ SEO professionals as well as search data on 10,000+ keywords.
The graph below shows what respondents believe to be most important in Google’s ranking factor:
1. Page Level Link Metrics
This is the number of incoming links to a page. Search engines look at the quantity of unique incoming links as well as the topical relevance of the linking pages.
Most important is the diversity of links to a page. It’s not enough to get a lot of links, you need to get them from a variety of sources.
Guest posts on other websites and blogger outreach to encourage bloggers to write about you are both ways to build incoming links.
2. Domain Level Link Authority Features
This is the number of incoming links to a domain as a whole.
In their webinar about the report, SEOmoz uses the example of Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles have a high search ranking not because of the number of incoming links to that article, but because of the number of incoming links to http://www.wikipedia.org/ as a whole.
Posting articles and content on popular sites is a great way to take advantage of domain level incoming links.
3. Page Level Keyword Usage
This refers to keywords in the HTML of your page. In order for your site to be indexed properly for search, you should be using keywords in the following:
- H1 Headings tags
- HTML Page Titles
- Meta Description
- URLs
- Images file names and ALT tags
4. Domain Level Keyword Usage
As noted above, keywords should be used in your URLs. For example, instead of http://www.homepage.com/987?3=5 use http://www.homepage.com/marketing-services. This helps search engines understand what type of content is on that page.
5. Page Level Social Metrics
Social media platforms are playing an increasingly important role in SEO. When asked about the future of search, the majority of respondents believe that social metrics will increase in importance.
Below are the social metrics that respondents believe are important to search. At the top of the list are the authority of users tweeting links to page, the quantity of tweeted links to a page and the number of Facebook shares to a page.
What the Report Tells Us
In their webinar wrap up, SEOmoz noted that the results of the report show two things. 1) What activities can directly result in higher rankings and 2) what characteristics top ranking sites have.
Although the characteristics that top ranking sites have aren’t directly related to search ranking, they are worth considering. Sites that rank at the top generally have great websites and compelling content. These aren’t direct search ranking factors, but great websites get more incoming links and compelling content gets more shares in social media spaces.
So although there are activities you can do to increase your ranking, succeeding online isn’t about gaming Google’s system, it’s about doing things well online.
