Exploring on-page search ranking factors

SEO professionals lump search engine optimization techniques thought out into three categories: on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and conversion. On-page optimization is concerned with all of the text, images, code, words, navigation, structure, and so on within the four corners of your website—all of the factors you control that appear "on-page". Off-page optimization refers to all of the material on the Internet concerning or pointing to your website that does not appear "on-page"; for the most part, off-page optimization refers to inbound links on the third-party websites. Conversion refers to how effective your website is at making users take actions once they appear on your site. A high-performing website needs all three elements working together.

On-page factors include the following:

• The body content—the main text of the page

• Title and meta tags

• Heading tags (h1, h2, h3)

• The quality and complexity of the HTML and CSS code that generates the webpage

• The images, their filenames, and alt tags

• Text attributes such as the use of bold and underline

• Outbound links; their number and the anchor text used in each

• The use of either dofollow or nofollow attributes on any of the links

• The internal navigation and link structure

• The size of your files and the speed at which your website loads

• The total number of pages on your website

• The rate at which you update or add content to your website

But how important are each of these factors? How do we know that one factor is more important than another? The software or programs that Google and the other search engines use to determine rankings are referred to as an "algorithm." While the behavior of the search engines can sometimes appear remarkably intuitive and almost human, the science underlying a search algorithm is ultimately reduced to complex mathematics.

Weighing search factors

Search engines must assign particular importance or weight to various on-page factors. A webpage's title tag, for example, is widely considered to be a strong indicator of the subject matter of a webpage. As such, a title tag has a very strong influence on search rankings. Conversely, the filenames of images on a webpage, such as texas_web_marketing.jpg, would not necessarily be as strong an indicator of the subject matter of a webpage. So, search engines apply much less weight to the image filenames in their ranking algorithms. Search engines value different web page factors differently—this variance is referred to by SEO professionals as "weight". Title tags and heading tags are afforded greater weight, while image filenames, alt tags, and bold text are given less weight. That is not to say that bold text and image filenames are not important. In fact, it's the use of these low-weight attributes that can give a webpage that extra push to higher rankings. When all of the ranking factors are present and utilized effectively and combined with a sound program of developing inbound links, the effect is almost supernatural—the combined effect of all factors working together can develop tremendous ranking power.

Understanding the search algorithm

The details of Google's search algorithm are not disclosed to the public. Google's public statements, Webmaster guidelines, and patent filings give us some general insight into the overall approach of its search algorithm. However, the details are closely-guarded secrets. For example, how does Google's algorithm treat a title tag—how much weight is afforded to this important component of a webpage? Is it 30%? 20%? Even if we did know, Google's search algorithm is subject to constant tweaking and updating. So, we know that a webpage's title tag is important, but the actual numerical importance within the Google algorithm we will never know.

So if the relative importance of different ranking factors isn't publicly disclosed, how do we even know which ranking factors are more important? The answer lies a little bit with the search engines' public statements, a little bit with logic, a little bit with experience, and a little bit by the consensus developed by SEO professionals and hobbyists.

We will examine each of these ranking factors in turn.

Ranking factor: body content

Body content simply means the "words on the page," actual ASCII text readable by a search engine. This important factor is too often ignored by webmasters. Some of the most egregious examples of webmasters that miss this important factor are sites with little or no text, sites which rely on image files to display text and messages, and flash-based sites. Search engines do not read the text in pictures or effectively read the text in the Flash files. So, if you are describing your service in the image file or Flash file, your message will not be read, and you will not rank for those terms.

A search engine needs to be able to find text on a webpage in order to make an evaluation of what your page is about. The text on your pages should meet the following rules:

• Size: A webpage should have at least 250 words of readable ASCII text

• Focus: A webpage should be focused on a reasonably narrow set of keywords

• Keyword Density: A webpage should not have keywords repeated so that the density of the keywords is too high in relation to the total number of words

A webpage should be of a reasonable length, at least 250 words. A page length of 400 or 500 words is better, but one can get by with shorter pages in some cases. In a more competitive search market, 250 words may not be enough and you'll need to increase your page length to rank effectively.

A webpage's body text should be focused; the page should deal with a narrow set of keyword phrases and not try to cover too much ground. If your web pages cover too many separate topics or keyword phrases in one page, you'll dilute the ranking power of each individual phrase and you'll rank for nothing.

You need to stay on-topic. If you are creating a page describing your expert IT services, don't fill the page up with about 60 percent testimonials; those testimonials may have value to your readers—and testimonials certainly have a place and a role in creating websites where your target readers are potential customers—but testimonials will not necessarily contain the keywords for which you want to rank. So, keep your webpages' body text focused on the topic of that page.

Similarly, don't cover too many topics within your body text. For example, say you want to create an Amazon affiliate page on your website and you try to rank for "WordPress books," "Joomla! books," and "Books on Web Design." If you try to rank for all three keywords on one page, you'll have to divide your content among a discussion of these separate topics. You'll dilute your ranking power for the phrase "WordPress books" by repeating the terms "Joomla! books" and "Books on Web Design" within the body text of your page. The better approach is to build three separate pages, each with a focus on one related family of keywords. Conversely, if you wanted to rank for "WordPress books", "Books on WordPress", and "Best WordPress books", you could create a single page to rank for all those terms because you can easily write body text that will include all those phrases. Your focused page will rank quite well.

Serious ranking power: title tags and meta tags

Title tags and meta tags are strings of text that are inserted in the head section of a web page. These tags are inconspicuous to a user, although not entirely hidden. The title tag appears in the top bar of the browser window, but does not appear on the web page itself. The meta tags do not appear to the user, they are intended for search engines to read. The principal meta tags for use in search optimization are meta keyword tags and meta description tags.

Note

Title tags are the most important ranking factor on an individual webpage; they are highly weighted by the search engines.

Often, a simple change to a title tag alone can yield significant changes in rankings. Again, remember the role of a search engine: to determine the topic of a webpage and return relevant results to its users. The title tag, logically, is perhaps the greatest signpost of what a page is actually about.

Title tags serve another important role; when a user enters a search query into a search engine, the first line of each entry on the search engine results pages is taken from each page's title tag. So, now your title tag presents an opportunity to attract searchers to click on your result out of a field of other websites on a search engine results page. Not only that, both Yahoo! and Google bold the words used in the search query within the title tags that they display on the search engine results page. So, if you use keywords effectively in your title tag, Google will highlight your entry in the search engine results page and that can help increase the click-through rate to your website pages.

Tip

Making perfect title tags

Keep in mind, space on a search engine results page is limited, so Yahoo! and Google don't show title tags longer than 70 or 80 characters. Try a search for almost anything and you'll see that if the title tag of the destination webpage is too long, the search engines truncate the title tag. Keep your title tags to 70 characters or less.

Also, keep in mind that search engines measure keyword prominence in title tags. This means that the first word in a title tag is afforded greater weight than the last word in the title tag. Put into practice, this means you should put your company name as the last word in your title tag and save the valuable and more prominent area of your title tag (the first 30 to 40 characters) for keywords related to your business or industry.

Tip

Your business' name is not a high-competition keyword

Don't use your business' name or slogan in valuable on-page positions like the first five words of your title tag—you'll likely rank for your business' name even if that name doesn't appear in your title tag at all because there's little competition for your business' name as a search term. Save those key positions for high-volume, competitive search terms, and user your business' name in less important positions like in the body of your text or at the end of your title tag, after the keywords. For example, an ideal title tag for a pet grooming service would be Pet Grooming & Pet Care | New York | The Pampered Pooch.

Meta keyword tags are the subject of some confusion and remain misused and even abused. Some uninformed webmasters erroneously believe that stuffing keywords into a keyword meta tag will help rank for those terms. That hasn't been true since about 2000 or 2001, yet the myth persists. In fact, Google is on record as saying that their algorithm no longer takes into account meta keyword tags.

If you were to use meta keyword tags, use them for Bing and Yahoo!, but not for Google. And, don't overdo it with meta keyword tags: less is more. Remember, you want to focus your web pages on a fairly narrow topic area so you will never need more than 15 or so meta keyword tags. A truly well-crafted page will use five to seven meta keywords.

Unlike keyword tags, meta description tags are very relevant to search results. Description tags are afforded substantial weight by search engines. Also consider that keyword prominence applies to description tags, so keep your important terms within the beginning of the description tag. Don't repeat your keywords excessively; if a search engine discovers your keyword used repeatedly, it might filter out your results.

Description tags, like title tags, are used by search engines when they display search engine results pages. On a Google search engine results page, the description tag comprises the second and third line of each standard four-line entry. This presents an opportunity for your description tag. Your description tag can serve as a hook to readers to invite them to click on your result in lieu of all the other search results. Again, length is important because search engines only display about 160 characters of a meta description tag on a search engine results page. And, if you are thinking you'll get some extra boost in rankings by creating a longer meta description, don't bother: it is widely believed that the major search engines only index the first 160 characters of the meta description tag. Anything more than 160 characters is ignored.

Tip

"Sell" with your meta description

Meta descriptions are not merely repositories for keywords! Your meta description can "hook" customers and bring them to your site.

Because search engines display the meta tag in search results pages, that text may have quite a lot to do with whether a person clicks on your link, or one of the 20 or so other links on a search results page. Don't use tired, stale descriptions; give your meta tag life and fire. See the image below for an example of an expertly drafted meta tag.

Google will nearly always display some text on the second and third line of each entry on its results page. What does Google display on search engine results pages if no description tag is present? If Google finds no description tag present, its algorithm will select some text from the body of the page and insert it as the description on its search engine results pages. For obvious reasons, this result is not ideal.

The following screenshot of a Google search result demonstrates Internet company Promodo's expert drafting of its meta description tag:

Using heading tags (h1, h2, h3)

The earliest specifications for HTML included provisions for document headings and subheadings, elements known as heading tags. Heading tag elements begin at h1 and progress to h6, and each level is intended to represent an ordered and organized taxonomy. These tags serve multiple roles.

As mark-up tags, these elements conveniently format the text elements to which they are applied. For example, an h1 tag will generate large text, in a bold font, with margins above and below—much like the headline in a newspaper article.

As HTML standards matured and CSS formatting became available in browsers, many web designers abandoned heading tags in search of prettier formatting for their headings. True, you can make text big and bold with CSS mark-up or with HTML formatting; you can make any text look like a heading without utilizing heading tags. However, in the world of search, that is a blunder because you will build almost no search engine ranking power from simply formatting text.

For search engines, heading tags serve a supplemental function beyond formatting. Heading tags serve as signposts that help search engines determine the context and topic of a web page. Heading tags are certainly part of search algorithms, and are given moderate weight in determining search position.

The best methodology for employing heading tags is to do the following. First, your page should only employ an h1 tag once. The text of the h1 tag should describe the main topic of the web page upon which it appears and should include the high-value, high-volume keywords for which you want to rank. Next, at a minimum, you should employ both h1 and h2 tags. Your h2 tags should repeat your important keywords—but with additional terms to give context to the section that the h2 tag covers. For example, if you are writing a page about air conditioning service and repair, you might employ h2 tags with text such as, "Your best choice for air conditioning service," and "Licensed and insured air conditioning service."

h3 tags are optional, but can come in handy for organizing longer pages. The search engine ranking power of heading tags decreases as you progress from h1 down through the lower orders of heading tags. Thus, h1 tags are mandatory, h2 tags are highly recommended, and h3 tags are necessary only in the most competitive markets. Heading tags have a complementary effect when combined with an effective title tag, body text, and meta description—when these elements are in accord, a search engine can more comfortably determine the main context of a web page, and can more confidently reward that web page with higher rankings.

Tip

Remember also that keyword prominence applies to heading tags, so greater weight is given to the words at the beginning of the tag.

Optimizing code quality and load speed

Code quality is an often-overlooked element of search ranking. Because it's overlooked, it represents a great opportunity to edge out less alert or less informed competitors. Code quality refers to the quality, amount, and load speed of the code and image sizes underlying your website. Search engines like quality code and fast loading times; poor quality code and slow loading times means a poor user experience for searchers.

HTML is an open source family of mark-up languages designed with fairly strict specifications set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These standards are updated every few years and result in new versions of HTML, such is the upgrade from HTML 3 to HTML 4. HTML 5 is under revision and will represent the next major redesign of the HTML standard.

When the code quality underlying a website does not meet the specifications of the HTML standard, the website may not display properly in all browsers. If the code is filled with errors or lacks proper elements such as an HTML doctype declaration, then that website may actually perform poorly in search engines. To test your code for validation, visit the W3C's free validator at http://validator.w3.org/.

The amount of code underlying the website can affect its load speed. The proper use of CSS can help a website reduce mindless repetition of attribute statements like font-size and color. Users of WordPress can worry less about code quality. Assuming that the WordPress template employed by a website does not contain coding errors, WordPress generally delivers very lean code that validates perfectly.

Note

Image size can also affect load speed.

Always be sure you are using a compressed image format whenever possible. For example, use JPEG format for photographs with an appropriate amount of compression. The faster the images load, the faster your web pages will load.

Menus, internal navigation, and link structure

Link architecture refers to the way a website's menus and navigation links are constructed. Link architecture can be very powerful and it's also one of the hardest topics in search to truly master.

The anchor text (the blue underlined text) of a website link is a ranking factor whether that link is from a site linking into your site, or is simply a link on your own site. For that reason, you have an opportunity to rank for certain terms by carefully selecting the anchor text that you use in your navigation menus. The most perfect example of the misuse of this principle in practice is the common employment of the term "Home" as the anchor text in navigation menus to point to a website's home page. A website's homepage has more ranking potential than any interior page on a website. For that reason, the anchor text pointing to the home page should be carefully selected. For example, instead of "Home", consider employing keyword-rich phrases such as "Austin's Best Carpet Cleaning" or "VW Repair" as the navigation anchor text.

Another common mistake in site architecture and site structure is the use of image buttons for links. A link comprised solely of an image has no anchor text. It's a missed opportunity to include a keyword in a text link and send a signal to the search engines about what the topic of the destination page is. It's curious to see this practice still employed so often.

Other issues arise in link architecture when the navigation menus are written in JavaScript or Flash—search engines don't read those languages effectively. The safest approach to constructing navigation menus is with HTML. If you require active navigation—drop-down or fly-out sub-menus—make sure they are constructed with search-friendly code such as CSS. Another typical problem in web design is the problem of "shifting navigation," where the navigation menus change as the user moves through a site. A good rule to follow is that if navigation is confusing for users, it's probably confusing for search engine spiders as well.

When securing inbound links from other websites, you would never want high-number/high proportion links that all used the exact anchor text—you'll likely trip a search engine filter if you do. Google wants to see natural linking patterns. A website with hundreds of links that all have the same anchor text (that is, "New York Dentist") does not look natural to a search engine, so a ranking filter would likely be imposed by the search engine to knock that listing down a few pages. The anchor text you choose for your site-wide navigation serves as an opportunity to use anchor text in high numbers and in high proportion that you wouldn't use for external links. The search engines have no anchor text penalty for your internal links; you can point all of your internal links to your front page with any anchor text you like.

Finally, the great opportunity with link architecture is simply to make sure the number and quality of links are pointing in greater numbers to the high-value pages such as your home page and product pages, and are pointing in lower numbers to your low value pages such as your privacy policy, your contact form, and your return policy. An easy way to accomplish this is to simply have your standard navigation either horizontally at the top of your website or on a left or right sidebar; then, to send extra link power to your most important pages, create a footer with links to your home page and a few other high-value pages. In addition, you can always create extra link power by creating text links to your key pages within the body of text throughout your site.

WordPress handles link architecture well. WordPress presents very simple site-wide navigation menus by default. In fact, many have criticized WordPress as not offering users as much control over navigation menus as they would like. With the release of WordPress 3.0, however, WordPress users now have the ability to customize navigation menus with the new menu feature, available under the appearance tab in the WordPress dashboard.

Note

For users less experienced with SEO, we recommend sticking with WordPress' reliable default navigation.

The customizable navigation is flexible and powerful—but that flexibility and power in inexperienced hands can yield poor search ranking results.

Image filenames and alt tags

Image names and image alt tags are an example of a ranking factor that is afforded lower weight in search rankings, that is, wordpress-expert.jpg as a filename in an attempt to rank for "WordPress expert." Certainly, image names alone will never make anyone rank for any term or phrase that is highly competitive. However, image names and alt tags can be effective as supplemental weight for search terms when the more important elements such as title tags and heading tags are highly focused and in accord.

Text attributes: bold, italics, and underline

Emphasizing text with the use of bold and underline has long been known to have some effect on ranking. Search algorithms follow predictable logic; do the elements of a web page serve to reliably indicate the subject of the web page, and if so, to what degree? Text attributes do tend to indicate the subject and context of a page, but rarely to a great degree. Rightfully, text attributes are not given much weight. Again, this technique is best used as a supplement to other stronger ranking factors.

This technique is commonly misused by inexperienced webmasters. While the effect of the technique is slight, overzealous designers often employ the technique on dozens of phrases on a web page. This technique will yield little to no effect, and will almost certainly undercut your user experience.

Note

The best practice is to employ text attributes for a maximum of two phrases per web page—your primary keywords only.

Ranking factor: high page count

There is a general rule that larger sites outrank smaller sites in search engine results. Consider the collective effect of a large website: larger sites cover more topic areas—and therefore more keywords—and garner broader traffic. The broader traffic yields larger numbers of inbound links from broader classes of other websites. In turn, the site earns trust with search engines more quickly. Meanwhile, each individual page within a site generates a small thimble of PageRank that can ultimately contribute to the overall site PageRank. The collective effect of a large website can bring tremendous ranking power.

The power of this simple device is available to everyone; you need not be an expert at SEO—you simply need to start writing.

As a webmaster, you should always aspire to create a site that covers broad topic areas. That does not mean have a blog about soccer, baseball, guitar greats, and web design all jumbled together. It means that if your blog is about web design that you would have a range of topics discussed within that discipline such as sound coding practices, logo design, navigation tools, and web design trends. To a small business owner employing WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System), that means building a page for each city in which you offer services as well as offering free tips and tools within WordPress' blog section.

In my web design and SEO business, I employ WordPress as both a CMS and a blogging platform. I maintain pages for the main areas of interest to potential clients: one page each for my service offerings (the pages are intentionally separated for ranking purposes: SEO, web design, WordPress development, social media marketing, call tracking, PPC management, and more), a page for a design gallery, a page for SEO case studies, a page for testimonials, and some service and contact pages. However, I utilize WordPress' blogging functionality to write (hopefully) helpful and valuable tips on SEO such as "How Does Google Local Order Its Search Results" and "Top Android Apps for SEO." Each month, I take the time to write about three or four such posts. My site ranks highly, but more important to me is the high number of search phrases for which my site ranks.

Anyone can rank for one search phrase. The truly exceptional sites, however, are the sites that have broadness—the sites that rank for wider classes of keywords.

When your site has broadness, other benefits flow. First, you'll garner greater numbers of inbound links—and you'll earn them from a greater variety of sources more quickly than you normally would. Say you are a web designer and you write a blog post about an innovative CSS trick that you invented. Your blog post will be of interest to other web designers and bloggers. With WordPress' innate tagging functionality, your post will be easy for other webmasters to find. Those other bloggers and designers might mention your post on their site with a link back to you. Congratulations! You just earned a link to an interior page (links to interior pages are usually harder to get than links to your front page) from a website within the same niche as you (links from same-niche sites carry more power). You just earned a link that you otherwise would not have had.

Consider also the PageRank effect of that single page. PageRank is part of Google's search algorithm; Google assigns a numerical value to each indexed page on the Web. When an indexed page hyperlinks to another page on the Web (including your own pages), a portion of that numerical value is passed from the linking page to the target page, thereby increasing the target page's PageRank. Inbound links increase your PageRank and, in turn, your search rankings. The amount of PageRank generated by a single page is admittedly slight—but it adds up quickly.

One of WordPress' most singular advantages as a search-friendly platform is that it offers simple and speedy publishing of new content. If you have 15 minutes and a good idea, you can create a decent page of new content. If you have 3 hours and a great idea, you can create a great page of new content.

Fodder for search engines: fresh content

Search engines love fresh and original content. Even more, search engines love a steady stream of fresh, original content.

I am sure we have all heard people talk about the website they are about to launch and say, "I am having a website built and it is almost finished." When I hear that exact phrase—and I hear it a lot—I cringe just a bit and feel like responding, "Really? Well, my website will never be finished." That's because a website should be alive and constantly changing. The old way of thinking about websites is that when a website was finished, it would sit frozen and immovable until the next redesign. Even the word "site" implies something fixed in the ground, not something constantly in motion.

A search engine sees a website for what it is; if a website has static content that never changes, the search engine knows it. Over time, the search engine spiders will come less often. Why send a search spider for content that doesn't change? The site will not be seen by search engines as high-value to its users. On the other hand, publish regular content to your site and the search engines will know it. In fact, search engines are moving toward real-time search results, although this technology isn't yet fully developed. The search engines will send spiders to your site more often looking for both new content and changes to old content. Your site will rise in the rankings. And, if that wasn't enough, new content will get a fresh content bump.

The fresh content bump refers to a supplemental boost in ranking power that search engines assign to fresh content served up from blogging platforms like WordPress for the first few weeks after the publish date.

WordPress began as a pure blogging platform and the search engines see new WordPress posts as timely, topical, and potentially newsworthy items. The search engines reward new posts with a little boost in position. As time passes, the posts will settle down in the rankings. You can use the fresh content bump to cleverly schedule prime rankings for matters of seasonal interest to readers. For example, you could write a post titled "Spring Activities in South Florida, 2010," where you deftly advertise your scuba diving service along with other activities. If you time it right, you'll get a boost in rankings right when the last tourists are having their vacations.

Your fresh content need not be entirely free giveaways with no benefit to you. Your new content can be a post or page about how you now serve a new area; put the name of the new town in the page as a keyword, and you'll rank for searches in which that town name appears. Or, how about a page announcing a summer sale? Google likes new content—but it doesn't have to be completely fantastic content every time.

Another benefit: new content is great when it is new, but new content is also pretty great when it is old. A site with continually fresh content becomes a very large site very quickly. We discussed the benefits of a large site in the previous section.

If you are reading this book, you likely have a WordPress site or are considering a WordPress site. With WordPress, your ease and speed of publishing is unmatched—you'll create new and better content faster than other webmasters, and your site will be alive with regularly fresh content and your site will grow up quickly.

Using the subtle power of outbound links

You can also gain ranking power by making outbound links from your site to other sites. The theory goes something like the following. You have a website for your gardening business and you want to rank for the phrase "Gardening Service San Diego." If you have an outbound link to other sites about gardening services and the anchor text of that outbound link is "Gardening Service," then that link can serve as a signpost to search engines that your site is about gardening services.

This technique has a potential disadvantage (there's disagreement within the SEO community about this point that remains unresolved): by linking to other sites, you are directing valuable PageRank away from your page to the page to which you are linking. So, you lose some PageRank, but gain ranking power for the keyword. You may not want to overdo it—maybe just a few outbound links on a few pages. This is a technique that requires some finesse, so you might employ some testing to see where outbound linking can be most effective.

As you are fine-tuning your outbound linking strategy, you'll want to consider making use of the nofollow attribute on your outbound links. The nofollow attribute is a small snippet of code that you add to links—both internal and external links—that indicates to search engines "do not pass PageRank to this link." We'll cover the implementation of nofollow links in depth in later chapters. The effect of nofollow links is that you can have your cake and eat it too—you can send a link to another website and establish context for your page while retaining PageRank for yourself!