SEO - Top 5 Factors Effecting Webpage Relevance

If you study a handful of Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) you will easily notice that pages are not ranked by PageRank. They are in fact ranked by relevance, so if you learn which factors effect relevance and how each of those factors impact the relevance, you will be way ahead of 95% of your fellow webmasters. PR (PageRank) is one of the lessor factors in SERP ranking and applies primarily to weighting the relevance of outbound anchor text.

Your page's PR will influence other pages you link to, but has little bearing on where you rank for that page, it's all about relevance.

Everyone in the Search Engine Marketing business has their own list of important factors and I was recently asked for my top 5 factors that effect your page's relevance.

1. Keywords in title
2. Keywords in URL
3. Keywords in text
4. Keywords in outbound anchor text
5. Keywords in inbound anchor text

I don't believe that it is simply a coincidence that they also have search operators for each of these:

1. intitle:keyword
2. inurl:keyword
3. intext:keyword
4. site:domain.com inanchor:keyword
5. inanchor:keyword

Of course there are many other factors, but these appear to be the primary factors effecting relevance. If you nail these you will usually be way ahead of the pack and closing in on the leaders.

What do you think of my list?

Don

The Incredibly Complex World of Search Engine Marketing

Welcome to the incredibly complex world of search engine marketing. My name is Don Burk and this blog will cover the details of SEM strategies and specific solutions to the many challanges that marketers face in this arena.

For those who do not know, Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs). SEM methods include Pay Per Click advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and to a lesser extent, paid inclusion.

As you will learn in future posts, anything you do to promote your website can have an impact on your placement in search engine indexes. While you have no direct control over organic listings, there is much you can do to influence when and how your site is listed.

Sponsored listings, or Pay Per Click advertising is a high stakes marketing method with lots of competition and ever increasing complexity. Not for the faint of heart, but very effective for those who learn to master it. We we learn how to tame this wild animal and turn it into a beast of burden, serving our needs.

In the fullness of time, as you read my posts, you will see how I use all the various SEM methods in a synergistic way. By using each method to improve the results of the other marketing methods, I get greater results than could be achieved if I left any one method out.

Feel free to jump in and contribute your own thoughts, questions and solutions. If you consider youself an expert and would like to contribute as a guest blogger, please drop me a note.

Best Regards,

Don