Tag Archives: Google Rankings

At Search Engine Experts, We have recently come to the conclusion that Google really really likes well designed websites. We have a client at work who’s webiste we market online. Over the last couple of weeks we made a variety of changes to the website code. Our aim was to analyse the site, identify elements in the code that could be holding the site back in the search engine results, and rectify the problems.

We began by cleaning up the coding on the website. A couple of years of subtle changes, tweaks, script changes etc had taken its toll, and due to laziness or bad workmanship, the code was splattered with snippets of left over code.

We cleaned up the code, removed all unnecessary coding, made sure the site validated as valid xhtml and css on W3C and streamlined the site. We wanted to also reduce the number of http requests to the server, so we combined images and used hotspots on the images to link to pages. The load time difference after changing the images was not noticable, and the file sizes were similar, but the http requests was cut in half.

We created a favicon image for the site, our reasoning was that we didnt want any errors when loading the site, and Google has the option of showing search results with the icons of the sites displayed.

We combined all the javascripts in the site into one external javascript file, and moved the script to the base of the html.

We optimised all the remaining images on the website, making them faster to load, and streamlined the text, optimizing it for the target key phrase.

The good news is that in a two week period, the site jumped from page 3 position 6 on Google, to Page 1 position 10. Obviously the ranking is changing all the time, as Google re-crawls each page in the top pages and re-shuffles the sites, but hopefully the site will carry on up the charts.

The main changes to the site allowed it to load in half the original time, with fewer requests, and more valid and streamlined code.

This article describes different facets of the factors Google uses to rank pages in the serps. There are “over 200 SEO factors” that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). Here is the speculation – educated guesses by Search Engine Experts SEO Specialists. Should you wish to achieve a high ranking, the various confirmed and suspected Google Search Engine optimization (SEO) Rules are listed below. It is really important to follow search engine ranking factors.

Keyword use in Title Tag


“Utilizing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag – Importance 4.9%”

Not only is the title tag a strongly weighted search Engine Ranking factor by Google, but having good titles is also very important for a high CTR in SERPS. And undoubtedly your best chance to catch a searcher attention and convert into a visitor. Another point is that people tend to link to pages using the title as anchor text. Always give attention to titles, just stuffing the title tag full with keywords is bad practice.

Keyword use in Domain Name


“Including the targeted keyword in the domain name (e.g. keyword.com) -Importance 4.8%”

If the domain name is an exact match and aged than it is strongly weighted by Google for Search Engine Rankings. Owners of keyword domains are blessed, not only because of the limited availability from keyword domains, but people also tend to link to pages using the URL as anchor text. In that case is the targeted keyword in every URL.

Keyword use in Anchor Tags


” Including the targeted keyword in the anchor tags – Importance 4.2%”

Keywords in anchor tags are for some years an important criterion of the Google algorithm. Links from the target site to the target page weight the same as an inbound link from another site to the target page. That’s one reason why a good sites link structure is very important. So Search Engine Rankings heavily rely on Keyword use in Anchor tags.

Keyword use in Body Text


“Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page – Importance 3.7%”

It is important to use keyword phrases throughout the page where it makes sense, but never forget that body text is for visitors.

Keyword use in Page URL


” Including target terms in the webpage URL (e.g. example.com/keyword-phrase) – importance 3.4%”

Including keywords in the page URL is not a strongly weighted search engine ranking factor, but the point is that people tend to link to pages using the URL as anchor text. Also having your keywords bolded in the listing URL from the search engines can catch a searcher attention.

Keyword use in H(x) Tags


“Creating an H1, H2, H3 tags with the targeted search term/phrase – Importance 2.7%”

The use of H1, H2, H3 tags is very overrated and often abused. This is most important factor determining search engine rankings as the use of H1 tag highlites importance of that keyword in your website.

Keyword use in Description Meta Tag


“Utilizing keywords in the description meta tag in a webpages HTML header – Importance 2.4%”

Utilizing a description Meta tag is important for display purposes in the SERPS, and can influence users to click on a listing. The meta description is still used as the listing description for search engines. Having your keywords bolded in the listing description from the search engines can catch a searcher attention. Just stuffing the description Meta tag full with keywords is bad practice.

Keyword use in Bold/Strong Tags


“Positioning keywords in HTML text with strong/bold tags – Importance 1.8%”

Setting words apart from the rest of the text indicates that they are important, but I haven’t seen real evidence to show this as being a real ranking factor.

Keyword use in Keywords Meta Tag


“Utilizing keywords in the keywords meta tag – Importance 1.2%”

The keywords Meta tag is not used, and has never been used by Google. There is no search engine left who uses the keywords Meta tag.