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which refers to Brett's quick rank system.
Since, it's dated april last year, I guess we can have the latest on this.
So Brett, have you updated your quick page rank point system. I liked it the way you put it.
title: 10 points
meta descrip: 5 points
large h1-h2 headings: 5 points
domain name: 3 points
bold or italic text: 2 points
url or filename: 2 points
beginning of a sentence 1.5 points
just usage in text: 1 point
meta keywords: 1 point
title attribute: 1 point
alt tag: .5 point
All members inputs are welcome.
btw, how do I modify my post's title?
So for example the moment I gave an outbound link to major authority related to website theme, site got boost in ranking in google. In fact for some less competitive keywords, site ranked in top, just because a link was going to relevant subject based site.
So I will weight outbound link at 6 points :)
1. Make sure that <title> and <meta title> are identical.
2. Limit title to 60 characters
3. Limit <meta description> to 150~180 characters, good grammar and avoid punctuation.
4. Limit <meta keywords> to 8 terms, 12 words; 70% of which must be in the body; avoid repetition.
5. Limit alt, title and summary attributes to sensible lengths ... I have no hard numbers on this yet, but think that there would be a negative factor for exceeding 4 words.
1. Make sure that <title> and <meta title> are identical.
2. Limit title to 60 characters
Just a personal preference but I dislike defining titles this way, rather vague.
Top Level Hierarchy Page Titles
2 words, or
3 words; if it applies to a highly competitive query/keyphrase
4 rarely; attempting to target multiple topics on a single page delutes all topics (words) and produces less.
These pages are rarely that informative and primarily define navigation (there are always exceptions though).
Second Tier Pages
3 - 5 words arranged in most common query strings
To a maximum of 60 characters
where even possible (if applicable) single keywords should be used as page titles. This tends to be very few instances, since "less title means broader topical information", and would normally be only relevant at mainpage.
IMO ;)
2. Limit title to 60 characters
Just a personal preference but I dislike defining titles this way, rather vague.Top Level Hierarchy Page Titles
2 words, or [3 or 4 words]
"Rather vague?" I don't understand - vague how?
Personally, I'll skip the top results with titles like "Blue Widgets" for the result who's title is "Widget World: We buy, sell & trade blue widgets." I find a two or three word title to be the slimmest of hairs better than "Untitled."
Your <title> is your first introduction to (read impression on) potential visitors/customers. "Untitled" doesn't grab me & neither does "Blue Widgets." If you can't come up with a more imaginative title than that, then I question whether the content will be any better. You need a "hook" to grab my attention and make me want to visit you, and being first in the SERPs isn't it.
You may have the best content on the Net and have exactly what I want, but if you blend in with the rest of the noise while I'm still at Google, I'll never know it & you just lost a potential customer...
Just MHO :)
Personally, I'll skip the top results with titles like "Blue Widgets" for the result who's title is "Widget World: We buy, sell & trade blue widgets."
I would think that Widget World would be the title and
We buy, sell & trade blue widgets. would make a good overall description for the mainpage and purpose of your site.
Targeting a single page to bring awareness and interest to your listing on the pretence that SE users will query "buy", "sell" and "trade" all at the same time, dilutes their searching ability, Users will search on "trade" only if that is what they are interested in.
I agree the title is attractive but unless you have unbeliveable PageRank, lots and lots of links with supporting anchors, excellent (keyword rich content) and generally a huge web site the chance of this title getting near the top for Google-eyes in a highly competitive industry is remote (on any single search query using buy or sell or trade and Blue Widgets).
On this particular reference:
Second tier page titles would be
Trade Blue Widgets
Buy Blue Widgets
Sell Blue Widgets
...on individual pages, and in Google the main page of "Widget World" would preceed or follow the second tier pages as the primary or secondary listing -- providing amplifying information.
Also, you now retain not just position #1 but #2 as well, and two chances of the click.
All personal preferences aside... the bulk of search engine users click on #1 regardless of how good it looks (I'm not saying -- you can just stick anything here).
The approximate difference between #1 listing click-through rates and #4 click-through rates is about 18%, or a potential loss of 18 clicks out of 100, (if only considering the listing look) and not if #1 through #3 satisfied their search requirements, which make this ratio much, much greater.
In addition, it's a big drop off after that...
The SEARCH matters not... it's the FIND that is important.
Although "some" users are enticed by fluffy, cleverly written slogans, or tag lines or even longer professionally written titles... less is more.
People search listings only (the search isn't their primary objective)... they buy, sell, or trade from web sites or the official physical business. If that very first site can do that... they will not search further, even if those professionally developed titles are far better than anything else on the page.
NOTE: An untitled at #1, gets more than a perfectly worded title (listing) at #2.
Generally speaking, the listing got to #1 for a reason (although possibly spam) but in this case users go to #2 or re-define their search which decreases overall click-throughs farther down in SERPs.
You need a "hook" to grab my attention and make me want to visit you, and being first in the SERPs isn't it.
Adding separately:
The hook -- if a person searched queried blue widgets and #1 listing title reads:
Blue Widgets
followed by a description -- seems like a pretty good hook to me! ;)
I'm curious - who else had success with what candidboy described?
I agree, the domain name has a considerable amount of weight put on it.
I wonder if this only applies to 2nd level domains, or can we still reap the benefit with a cname, i.e.- widgets.branding.com vs. www.branding-widgets.com?
Beyond the optimization value the use of font families is especially useful.
1. make sure that your style says something like this somewhere:
h1 { color: #0000FF ; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif ; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: 18pt; }
2. replace the <b> tags arround the 'title' in your text with the <h1> tags instead:
<h1>FooBar Widget Cleaner.</h1>
The text will now be blue, centered, bold and bigger that general text. Any survey bot will see it as an acceptable <h1> tag. Make very sure, of course, that the color is contrasting to the background.
As a human being, depending on the kw, I will often not trust a kw-kw.com... The more SEOs use it, the sooner that will be completely removed from the count...imho of course.
citing Goto.com => Overture.com as a role model.
Of course, he was talking about overall strategy, not just short term ranking.
It may be that I just woke up, but are we talking about the name attribute.... or am I just being dreamweaver-centric?
<img src="image.gif" alt="Buy Blue Widgets">
The W3C has a good write up on doing it for accessibility reasons. [w3.org ] But it's always nice for SEO too, as the bots will gobble the text up.
i dont think so, because they addressed the alt tag, and there is a title tag entry in the list right above that.
I know the name tag, just havent used a title tag.
so whats this title tag?
W3C - The Title Attribute [w3.org]
I've found it to be a great alternative to the alt tag. Why? Well, it appears that the alt tag is not supported by all browsers, mainly Opera and Netscape. When you use the title attribute, Opera and Netscape display it just like an alt tag.
What elements are supported within the img tag?
W3C - Including an Image - The IMG Element [w3.org]
P.S. I should verify that when I do use the title attribute, that it is within the <a href> that is assigned to that image, not the actual img tag itself. I do use the alt tag as it is intended and it typically mirrors the title attribute of the <a href>.
IE5.0 and NN6.0 support an additional attribute in the IMG tag, the TITLE attribute. The TITLE attribute is similar to the ALT attribute. If the TITLE attribute is present, mousing over an image will give the TITLE and not the ALT. Broken images display the ALT, with the TITLE mouseover. This gives flexibility as to what information the user gets in a mouseover. NN4.7 doesn't support this at all.
<added>After doing some back tracking on my notes and those of the W3C, using the img with a title attribute is not really recommended. The W3C suggests using the alt tag as it was intended. If the image has a link assigned to it, then use the title attribute in the <a href> tag and the alt tag on the image.
Whatever you do, be consistent. If you use the title attribute on links, do it on all of them. If you wish to pass W3C validation, you'll need to have an alt tag assigned to each image. For spacer images use alt="" (that's two quotation marks). If you have an image as a bullet, use alt="*". This all deals with accessibility issues.</added>
How about -
PageRank Weight
PR of incoming link: 10 points
Relevance of incoming link: 7 points
Inbound link text: 7 points
Proximity (multi kws of incoming link): 4 points
Outbound links: Dilutes PR
Relevance Weight
title: 10 points (reduced if kw density low)
domain name: 7 points
subdomain: 5 points
directory name: 4 points
file Name: 3 points
large h1-h2 headings: 5 points
first sentence of first paragraph 5 points
proximity (multi kws): 4
beginning of a sentence 1.5 points
bold or italic text: 1 points
usage in text: 1 point
title attribute: 1 point
alt tag: .5 point
meta description: 0.5 points
meta keywords: 0.05 point
outbound links: needs substantiation?
Also - ;)
keyword competition index: 10 points
SEO Experts ability to get everything right: 10 points
it seems that file name should be below proximity in this case... so it your rank for it incorrect, or is its position mixed up.
great job on clearing some of the 'fog of war'.
I suppose it is also reasonable to attribute this to other factors ie; index pages would tend to have a higher PR but I'd be interested in others thoughts
Proximity (multi kws of incoming link):I must have missed something here. What's that mean?
I've never used them, ever. My site that I'm currently developing isn't using them either.
Are H1 and H2 tags really that important?
Based on the above... and a little reasonable deducting -- yes. :)
I've been looking for a resource like this for weeks.
My great thanks for the benefit of your experience. :)
Alex Poole
