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SERPs Ranking Factors Study Research

Search Engine Optimization

Saturday, 02 June 2007 18:36

Google Ranking Factors

Well here is another interesting study. I am participating in different SEO forums and sometimes I disagree with so called "SEO gurus". Well if a guy has the most posts and a big sign under his username that he is the biggest poster that does not mean that he is a good SEO. I recommend him spending more time researching the true ranking factors.

He tried to convince me that having the keywords in domain is not important at all. And I know that is not true and it will probably never be. Well I would rather see that search engines would not put so much importance on keywords in domain because let's face it - best domains are already taken - registered.

o this guy was going on and on how the domain name has nothing to do with the web site ranking. Well I hope he reads this study from German Company Sistrix, that recently analyzed around 10,000 web sites and importance of different ranking factors.
Here are different ranking factors explained and shown in graph from Sistrix study.

Keyword in Title Tag

Here is this graph you can see that it is important to have the keywords in title tag. Title tags are one of the most important ranking factors. Especially in Google. You can see the title tag on the top of your browser and in the html code under

<title> Title of the page</title>

in the <head> section of your html code.

Keyword in Title Tag

Keyword in the Body of the page

Also here is evident that having the keywords in the body of the page is really important.
You can see that this is especially important for the first 10 positions in SERPs.

Keyword in the Body of the page

H1 tags Ranking Factor

You can always put the titles of the text (not the meta title) in H1 tags. The title would look like this
<h1>Title of my article</h1>. And if we believe this research the H1 tags are not so important in ranking, probably because they were misused by many SEOs.

H1 tags Ranking Factor

Titles H2 - H6 Ranking Factors

Well it is different with H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 tags that you can also use for different sections of you text as subtitles for example. Well the German company claims that having these tags is really beneficial for better ranking

Titles H2 - H6 Ranking Factors

Bold / Strong Text Type Ranking Factor

Making your keywords in bold text can also improve your rankings. So use it. Especially it is important for ranking in top 20 SERPs results.

Bold / Strong Text Type Ranking Factor

Image Filenames Ranking Factor

Well this one is a surprise. I was more focused on alt tags of the images. Well obviously having a filenames of the images rich in keywords helps getting better SERPs ranking. SO use your keywords in your image filenames. You can use for example:

keywordphrase.jpg
keywordphrase2.jpg
keywordphrase3.jpg

Image Filenames Ranking Factor

Images - Alt Tags Ranking Factor

Image alt tags can be seen if you hover over an image for few seconds with mouse cursor. Ten a small text displays over the image. Well this is called Image Alt Tag. Well I recommend always put your keywords into alt tags of all your images.

Images - Alt Tags Ranking Factor

Domain - Keyword in Domain Ranking Factor

Well liek I said in the beginning of this post there are still some SEO who give wrong advice to people.In this graph you can clearly see that having keywords in domain is important in ranking.

Domain - Keyword in Domain Ranking Factor

Keywords In Filepaths Rankign Factor

Keywords in file paths or the parameters in a dynamic web site
Having keyrods in the the urls filepaths for dynamic pages did not bring any positive effects.

Keywords In Filepaths Rankign Factor

Page Size Ranking Factor

Having pages with smaller size is also very important. You can see that it is better to have smaller page size. So try to use smaller size for pictures, less flash and less java script.

Page Size Ranking Factor

Incoming Links - The Most Important Rankinng Factor

Well like people already know -having incoming links is the most important ranking factor for the web site.

Incoming Links

PageRank Ranking Factor

PageRank is the Google importance meter of the web site. So having a higher PR helps with better ranking. Well this one is not a surprise. Still not so important as incoming links but try to inrease it and you will have a better chance beating your competition.