Aaron Wall's Vision On Search Engine Optimization (Part 1 Of 3)

Because of the fact that Aaron Wall's SEO Book is now available for sale on ebook-scene we provide three articles in which Aaron Wall gives his comment on the different ranking factors search engines use. Together with 37 other SEO experts Aaron Wall voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). Each factor regarding the search engine optimization is listed, briefly described and added with Aaron Wall's comment.

Keyword Use Factors.

In this first article we concentrate on the use of keywords on your website. The following components relate to the use of the user's search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.

1) Keyword Use in Title Tag


Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header.
Aaron Wall about this: "If it is overdone it can actually supress a site's rankings, but if the site is well mixed and the titles look more like descriptive newspaper titles than overt SEO it helps a lot. Plus many people link at documents by their official names, and thus the title acts as anchor text for viral content".

2) Keyword Use in Body Text


Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page.
Aaron Wall says: "If it is overdone it can suppress rankings. I think they are moving more toward topic analysis to learn what is relevant though".

3) Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis)
Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords.
Aaron Wall his comment on this issue: "Using semantically related terms allows you to help associate your page with other topical pages and helps your page rank for many long tail keywords".

4) Keyword Use in H1 Tag


Creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase.
Aaron Wall about the use of keywords in the H1 Tag: "May hurt your rankings if it is too well aligned with the page title and anchor text. If templating issues cause too much duplication in a large section of a website it may also lead to reduced crawling".

5) Keyword Use in Domain Name


Including the targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e. keyword.com.
Aaron Wall about this: "If the domain name is an exact match I believe it is strongly weighted because it might be a sign of a navigational query. Plus having an exact match domain means their were either early to their topic (and thus perhaps a topical leader), or they may have paid a domainer nosebleed prices for the domain".

6) Keyword Use in Page URL


Including target terms in the webpage URL, i.e. seomoz.org/keyword-phrase.
According to Aaron Wall: "Not weighted anywhere near as much as an exact match domain name, but helps improve CTR (and thus relevancy if CTR factors into relevancy scores) and some people will link to pages using the URL as anchor text".

7) Keyword Use in H2, H3, H(x) Tags


Placing targeted terms in the H2, H3 headline HTML tags.
Aaron Wall about this: "May hurt your rankings if it is too well aligned with the page title and anchor text. If templating issues cause too much duplication in a large section of a website it may also lead to reduced crawling".

8) Keyword Use in Alt Tags and Image Titles


Using target keywords inside alt HTML tags and img title tags.
Aaron Wall says: "Important for helping images rank, but not as important for helping a page link, unless the image is a hyperlink, in which case the alt text acts similar to anchor text".

9) Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag


Utilizing keywords in the meta description tag in a webpage's HTML header.
Aaron Wall: "If done well it helps improve CTR by making your listings look more appealing. May hurt your rankings if it is too well aligned with the page title".

10) Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag


Utilizing keywords in the meta keywords tag in a webpage's HTML header.
Most of the SEO experts agree that this last component doesn't influence rankings at all in Google which doesn't index the information provided within it. Is fractionally weighted with Yahoo, but should only help if there are no other pages indexed that actually use the words in more important areas of the site.

(Next week Aaron Wall's comment on page attributes)