September 18, 2008
Crucial Considerations for Blog Rankings via Search Engine Optimization
A lot of advice is available on the word wide web in terms of what people must do to get acceptable rankings with Google and other SE's for their WordPress pages.
It's easy to feel baffled when you read everything that's out there, because some people concur with others while another group totally disagree and provide different advice.
In current SEO terms, someone that advises you must submit a website to the search engines so that they can index it is very out of date. Most search engines have become very good with finding brand-new web sites and index them without you submitting them.
Not too long ago a well-known group of SEO professionals provided their consensus opinions to SEOmoz with reference to what is relevant to get excellent search engine rankings today.
In summary, below are the 4 heavy-hitter search engine optimization ranking factors, according to their consensus views.
Using Relevant Keywords in the Title Tag
It's extremely important to employ the correct keywords in the text used in the title tag of a WordPress page. Not only does it assist with improved search engine rankings, it also assists with better click-through from the SE listings to the blog. It's of lesser value to be listed high in the search results without receiving that many clicks. The ultimate purpose is to gain as many targeted visitors to your web pages as feasible.
The keywords that were used by the searcher are highlighted in bold in the search results. When part of the page title is bolded, it stands a better chance of being noticed and getting that mouse click. Notwithstanding, highlighted keywords don't comprise the only thing to consider when composing the title tag.
A smartly written title tag, that entices the searcher to click, can attract lots of additional clicks. It's more advantageous to gain a hundred clicks from the fifth listing with a great page title tag compared with 50 clicks from the third listing with a boring page title tag, correct?
Anchor Text of Links to Your Site
The anchor text that is utilized in the hyperlink that points to your site from an external web site counts a lot in the SE computations to determine what your site is focused on. And, what your web site is focused on defines largely what keywords it will rank for in the search engine listing.
If it's possible that you can influence in any way the anchor text that third-party web sites employ when they link to your site, then it is an extremely productive way of investing your time.
A larger number of web sites that have links to your site with a particular set of keywords, or alternate versions of that keyphrase, will prompt the search engines to more readily believe that your site is all about that certain keyphrase.
It is even better when the content of the page on your site contains that specific keyphrase and its latent semantic equivalents.
The Global Link Popularity of Your Web Site
Search engines compute the relative importance of a web site by using the volume of links that point to the web site. They take into account both quality of hyperlinks and quantity of the hyperlinks.
The importance of your site grows in the opinion of the SE's in accordance with the number of distinct web sites that have links to your web site.
The building of links doesn't stop. There can never be enough links pointing to your website.
True, it's possible to build backlinks too fast and that could trigger some flags in the algorithms of the search engines.
However, if done as an ongoing effort employing a longer term outlook, every link is worth the resources spent in acquiring it. The links all contribute to a higher perceived importance of your site.
Link Popularity in the Internal Link Structure of the Site
It's a fact that some of your web pages will attract more links than other pages. The pages that don't gain lots of external links could be the actual money pages that you'd wish to rank high in the search engines.
The internal linking structure, and the anchor text utilized for the internal links, is the way to disperse PageRank and reputation inside your own site. The prudent path is to get the plugin for WordPress SEO that affords you full control of the linking structure of your blog.
Some SEO professionals believe that an internal link to a page carries the same weight as an external link.
That doesn't mean the web site will gain high rankings by having only internal links. What it does mean is that you can cause a page to be ranked by having internal links pointing to it even though it doesn't have lots of external links, provided that the rest of the site has gained sufficient PageRank from external links.
SEO may appear daunting when one looks at it as a whole.
But, when broken down into its components, there are a few relatively uncomplicated things one can concentrate on and enjoy the largest gains.